My first time shooting a gun!

Tyler, one of Mary's coworkers invited us to the range Friday night. He knew I was looking at guns trying to decide what to get. He was able to get both guns I'm looking at for me to try out. The Glock 19 and Springfield XDm are the 2 I like. I shot both and liked both. I defiantly like the better safety system of the XD but the durability and versatility of the Glock have me leaning that way.

Mary saw that that excited but was willing to get it a try. I was enjoyable to watch her process. She would barely hold the gun at first, but she got the nerv to load the clip and close the chamber. Then she put it down. She'd pick it up, put her finger on the trigger then bring it back up and tap the barrel. She put it down and walked away. I emptied the clip, reloaded and she tried again. Fired one shot then put it down. Later she shot 3 rounds and put it down again. Finally she opened up and fired off a full clip, then was done for the night.

I'd say I shot about 8-10 clips and it was a blast. Shot Tyler's Glock 32 and that thing was a beast to me. Had quite the kick and was twice as loud as the 19.

Here is my frist target. First time visiting the range as well
as shooting a gun. Shot a Glock 19, 32 and a Springfield XDm.


This was at 15 yards. Used the glock 19 and XDm for this.

Save the dates go out today!

All but one of the bridesmaids came over to my parents house and they helped address them. Dad and I went and got pizza and the girls were done when we got back. Teamwork really does pay off! :) We hung out and ate pizza after, it was a fun night and I liked that my parents got to meet the bridesmaids in an informal setting.

NAV!!

The nav is in and it's awesome! I freaking love it. Friday night we decided to get started on it and before we knew it we were hot and heavy into and before long it was done. It took a little over 4 hours but we had Saturday set aside to knock it out too. The guys on the evo forum said it takes forever and some spent 10 hours on it. Byrd rolled in to help with the dremel action. He is really good at it and why waste resources when you have them? :)

Here she is in all her glory.
Did ya notice the fake warning screen? It's a fake warning about a turbochaged car, pretty funny. Changing the loading screen is super easy.
This is the main root navigation for the unit.

I have already be digging around and uploaded new point of interest icons! It's funny to see windows running like that. It uses windows CE, so I have a little PC in my car. Hitting the buttons in the windows enviroment is super hard, and I didn't realize there's a stylus til after.

I couldn't be happier. The ipod connection works great, the nav works like a nav and the bluetooth is awesome! The voice recognition is pretty awesome. Just tap the big silver button and say play aritst so and so and it works. The VR for phone dail is a little buggy, you have to say the actual number, but you can also use the unit to nav through your contacts and that's pretty simple.

Wine

On the Evo forum about two weeks ago I met a guy that owns a winery in California called Ricochet Wines. We discussed how to ship some here due to the fact that Tennessee laws prohibits shipping alcohol. Well, long story short we worked out shipping to one of the owners who happens to live in Atlanta and that I'd order some when I headed that way. Back to this wine and why I got it. The popular wines at Ricochet were Syrah and Petite Sirah, two wines I have never heard of. My next trip to the liquior store I was on a mission. To find that wine. I found this Bogle Petite Sirah. Well, I bought on our way to see Jim in Ohio. We ended up not drinking it but I left the bottle up there. The next week I bought another bottle. Man it was worth the wait and having to buy 2 bottles. This stuff is great! Very smooth, very tasty and super easy to drink. Looking forward to another bottle of this.

Little side note: The bottle in the picture is the bottle I bought on the way to Ohio. Jim came back in this weekend and brought it.

Dean Food's Over the Moon Microsite.

The microsite I designed and built here at DMGx has gone live on foodnetwork.com. Check it out in all it's glory by clicking the image above. While your at it check out their super clever recipe for hot chocolate, haha.

No more hair

Me this morning.
Me this afternoon.

HCD week 6 - day 45

Hopped on the scale last night. Looks like its that time! Time to cut the hair. I'm down 15 pounds and with V-day coming up it works out perfectly!

The garage has a new look.

Old look.
New look.Since this weekend we are putting the nav in the Evo I decided to buy a workbench. I was trying to get Mary's brothers truck but had no luck since Michael had it at TN Tech. So I planned to get Clif's truck and pick one up. While Sunday after we got back from Ohio Mary surprised me with a workbench! She got it for me for Valetines day and decided to give it to me early since I had plans in motion to go get one. Isn't she the best?!
I went to Lowe's yesterday and picked up a bunch of other garage goodies. It actaully feels like a real garage now!

Nav update 1

Everything is in!! She is going in this weekend!

Visiting Mary's dad in Piketon, Ohio

Mary and I took off Friday afternoon for Piketon, Ohio. It is quite the drive, 75 to Cincinnati, take the 275 bypass to highway 23. Highway 23 is long and boring but rolls right up to Jim's doorstep. It took about 5.5 hours to get there. We went out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner which had quite the decor but good food.
This is his pad. Top floor on the left.

Saturday after breakfast at the local Bob Evans we headed to Columbus to check out the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Ohio Historical Society. It was very interesting. It was more like his work brought to life. Here are some images. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so I had to use the iPhone.
The Ohio Historical Society.







After the museum we left Columbus and headed to Chillicothe, Oh. It's the town closet to Piketon that has an Olive Garden and a movie theater. Mary was craving some OG so he stopped there for dinner then headed to the theater to see He's Just Not That Into You. I didn't like the movie that much. Had a good cast, basically the Ocean's 11 of chick flicks. But the depiction of relationships was horrible. I don't know one person that has had that much trouble and drama in a relationship. The movie suggested all relationships were like that and it also made women look pathtic, very annoying. Anyways...

We had an air matress that I borrowed from my folks, but no pump. We made a run to Wal-mart to pick one up. After pumping up the matress we watched a movie then headed to bed. It was a 4th deflatted and by morning we were sleeping on the floor. There was no way to find the hole so we just stuck it out the next night.

Man the folks in Ohio are horrible, not a friendly soul in the bunch, it's almost depressing. People just run into you, no one says hi. Even cashiers/store employees could careless. In the movie theater parking lot when we were leaving all the tracffic is forced out of one outlet. The outlet led to a main road but the outlet road had no stop sign at. This seemed to confuse and daze the Ohioans prolonging the vacancay of the lot. Not only that but, you know those traffic situtations when its real crowded and 2 points of traffic met and you file in...like one after another? While in Ohio this silent rule is out the window. Jim had learned this already in just his 4 weeks there and just pulled right out in front of someone...haha.

Sunday we got up off our floor bed and Jim had made us breakfast. We grabbed showers and hit the road.

It was a fun trip, nice to see Jim and cool to hang out with him, just Mary and I.

HCD week 5 - day 39

It's been a crazy crazy week with Silas in the ER and all the snow (I should of posted about the snow). So I didn't get a chance to do my usual write up. So here it is, only 4 days late.

I had to shift my workout schedule to Tuesday Thursday and I didn't run at all this week. It's been freezing out. My diet has taken sort of a strange turn. The last 2 days I have been skipping a normal breakfast and dinner. Just taking my vitamins (post about them coming soon) and drinking OJ in the morning while eating some almonds with a spoon of peanut butter at night. Surprisingly I have felt great, no headaches, and I have dropped a few extra pounds. I realize this isn't the ideal way to do things but I may work it into a routine, especially closer to the wedding.

I hopped on the scale a few times throughout the week and was happy with the results, dropping a few each time. This morning when a jumped on I had some strange results. I usually weigh 4 or 5 times to make sure its correct. I haven't had troubles until today. First 2 times I was 210.6 and was like, "Awww man I have to cut my hair!" (I stated I would cut the hair after losing 15 pounds) haha not really...I was just shocked. I moved the scale and tried again. 215, what?! Tried again, 215 again. NNoooo...I was not happy. I picked up the scale and clean the contacts off and tried again. The result below is what I got the next 4 tries so we'll go with it.
For the few that read this is you want to see the progress click on the HCD link below (Labels: HCD) to see all the posts about it.

Mary and I are off to Ohio today so Saturday's workout is going to be hard to hit but I will try my best with what I have. Staying on course with the diet is the true goal.

EvoScan and cable

Ordered a datalogger cable and Evoscan for the Evo. I'll be able to see every little thing the car outputs plus I'll be able able to tune remotely. I have been talking to a guy in Memphis at Melon Tunning. He is going to help me out once I get everything in. More to come...

FINALLY...I own a Nav

I finally broke down and bought one! I have wanted a nav unit forever! After not a lot of research I went for the Pioneer AVIC-F90BT.


This one does everything! Nav, bluetooth (reviews say it works great with the iphone), great ipod control, USB inputs, plays DivX movies, great voice control, it's pretty endless. Another great thing about this unit is the maps are on an internal flash drive, meaning updating the nav maps is simple and cheap. Even google maps can me loaded.


Now for the fun/hard part. Once I found this rewite up I knew it could be done. I had to order 2 addition pieces. The radio relocation kit (seen above) will house the HVAC unit once its cut from its current module. I have order the wiring harness and the double din piece. The double din piece is straight from Japan so it's going to take a while to get that, but its on its way.

Hopefully next weekend everything will be here and I can get started!

UPDATE!
The double din panel's estimated delivery is the 17th! Wack!

UPDATE 2!
It arrived on the 7th. 7 days from Japan to my door! Not bad.

Silas in the ER

Sunday Mary and I went to Wasabi for lunch and ran to the store
afterwards. When we got home we found that Mako had knocked Mary's
new meds off the counter and Silas got into them. The pills were for
headaches but also were used to lower blood pressure. He ate 26 of
them. We called her pharmacist and she told us that we should call the
vet. I called the local animal ER and after they looked up the drug
(can't remember the name) they told us to get him there as soon as
possible. As you can imagine Mary was not a happy camper and we piled
into the car and sped off. Silas meanwhile wasn't showing any signs of
sickness at all. When we arrived at the ER he was his normal self
trying to get to everyone in site. They only took a small amount of
info from us before rushing him to the back. The doc came out very
quickly and informed us they were going to induce vomiting and put him
on an iv. 10 minutes later they info us he got most of it up but they
were worried some of it was still in his stomach. They needed to run a
charcoal solution through him to help. The charcoal causes a lowing of
the blood pressure and reduced heart rate, dame side effects of the
pills he took. They would need to keep him over night to keep a close eye on him. They gave us an estimate on the cost and we had to sign it before they moved on. The estimated cost was from $650-$800, I was quite shocked but prepared to do what it took to get the little guy back to normal. We signed the paper and with a strange feeling we left, due to pick him up the next morning at 6:30am

Mary broke down in the car but I assured her we did what we could and that I thought since he wasn't showing signs of sickness that we must of caught it right after it happened.

I called them a few times throughout the night to check on him and was told he was doing fine each time. They also told me he had an e-collar (the cone) to keep him from pulling the iv out.

The Superbowl was strange, since we had to watch it while one of our kids was alone in the hospital.

We got to the vet a little early, around 6:20am to pick him up. We were surprised that the total cost came in under the estimated prices, meaning he recovered well and didn't need half of the treatments. They brought him out to us and it was like nothing ever happened. He was just as happy to see us and we were him, tail going 100mph ready to take on the world.

We came home and slept for a few hours, Silas right between us. He was back to himself.

We were informed yesterday that the pharmacist didn't want to freak Mary out but he probably would of died in 2-3 hours had we not caught it in time.

I truly am thankful for those doctors at the ER! They were great!