Happy

As I was celebrating my friend's graduation from seminary today, I had a chance to reflect on my own life. I love my life right now. I love my fiancé. I love my job. I love my friends. I love my job. I love where I live. I miss Lauren like crazy, but knowing that she loves me so much that she let me move back to the desert I consider myself incredibly lucky. Don't get me wrong, there are things I miss about Florida. Well, at least one thing (looking at you James).
If you had asked me 10 years ago where I would be living right now, Glendale Arizona would not have even made it on the list. It's crazy the twists and turns our lives take. I've had a lot of ups and downs the past 6 or 7 years. There were times I felt like I would never be happy again. There were times I thought I would never fall in love again. Boy was i wrong.
I am going to have so many adventures with Lauren I smile every time I think about the future. I've never had much of an adventurous spirit, but there are so many places I want to share with Lauren. Places I've been, but she hasn't. Places she's been, but I haven't. Places neither of us have been that we will get to discover together. It may be all in my head, but the desert is so good for me. Sorry if this blog came out all corny and sappy. It's 3am, and I am not 100% awake.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, if somebody asked if I was happy and I knew it, I would indeed clap my hands, stomp my feet, and say "Hooray!"


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I Watch too Much TV

It should be no surprise to anyone that with the advent of DVR’s, Hulu, Netflix, and the like, there is no such thing as appointment TV anymore. If you wanted to watch Seinfeld back in the day, you had to be ready at 9:00pm on Thursday night, ready to watch. If you missed it, you had to wait until reruns, or even worse… syndication! Explaining that to the next generation of TV watchers will get you some strange looks. Of course if you are tech savvy enough to be reading this blog, you probably already know all this.

Which brings me to the point of this post, I watch WAY too much TV. I thought having the ability to streamline my viewing by fast forwarding through the commercials would lessen the amount of time I spend watching shows, but it just increased the number of shows I can watch in the same amount of time. So I reach out to you, my cyber friends and family for suggestions of where to cut. I know some of you will say to stop altogether. I appreciate your attempt at help, but we all know this isn’t going to happen. So, here’s what I typically record on a weekly basis. Please do not judge me. I know it’s a long list. That’s why I want help trimming it.

2 Broke Girls (I said don’t judge me)
30 Rock
Alcatraz
Glee (Seriously, stop judging)
Hawaii Five-O
Hell on Wheels
NCIS
NCIS: Los Angeles
New Girl
Pan Am
Parenthood
Parks and Rec
Person of Interest
SNL
Survivor (Not cool guys, NO JUDGING!)
The Firm
The Office
The Walking Dead
Up All Night

There are probably shows I have forgotten, but this is what I can come up with off the top of my head. Now, some of these shows will never come off the list (The Office) and some of them should have been removed a long time ago (2 Broke Girls). I want to cut this list in half. Now, I may still catch up with these on Hulu or Netflix now and then, but as far as recording every week, I need to whittle it down.

On a totally unrelated note, I don’t think I’ve ever typed the word whittle before. Weird.

Thanks in advance for all of your help!


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Life as WE know it

I firmly believe that there is life on other planets in this great big universe we call home. I even believe that there is intelligent life. If we have been visited or not is another question for another post. Right now I want to talk about life as we know it.
Whenever I see an article about scientists finding planets that are in the right orbit for life I wonder what they are talking about. I know they mean life as we know it, but that seems so limiting. Seriously, have these people never seen a sci-fi movie? Why can't there be life that our little minds can't even comprehend? Here's one; Transformers. I know, go ahead and laugh. But if you think about it, looking for life as we know would totally exclude Cybertron. Aren't the Autobots and Decepticons "alive?" What about a planet where there is some sort of gaseous life form. Or a whole planet of rock people. Doesn't seem like water would be needed for those, but we have some sort of hang up about looking for planets with liquid water. By the way, liquid water is just water. Ice and water vapor are the other choices so saying liquid water is a bit redundant.
Am I alone in wondering about this?


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John Smith

I have been trying to think of the "right" thing to say all day today about Grand-pa Jack. Jack. John Smith. Such a common name for someone so special. Jack was the real deal. He was an honest to goodness hero. Not just a war hero either. After fighting in WWII, he took advantage of the GI Bill, and used his education to help put men on the Moon. As if being a war hero, and a participant in the space race wasn't enough, he was a loving husband and father. And an amazing grandfather, not only to his actual grandchildren, but to those few of us graced to be part of his life.
I never knew my grandfathers. I wish that I had, but wishing will never make it so. Jack treated me as one of his own. He was kind and funny. He loved his family, and always put them first. His marriage to Peggy is one to be admired by all. Sixty-Two years they were together. If I can even spend half of that amount of time with Lauren I will consider myself blessed.
I loved Jack's stories. I will share my favorite one, and I think you'll see why I like it. One Sunday, we were leaving church and everyone was chatting about this or that, and I think Lauren mentioned something about her trip to Australia. I was helping Jack to the van and he stopped and looked at me.
"Have you ever been to Australia?"
"No Jack, I never have. I would love to go sometime. Have you been?"
"Oh yes. If you are ever in Sydney by the McDonald's on Kings Row, be careful. That's where all the hookers hang out."
"Okay Jack, I'll keep that in mind."
He started walking again, and that was the last he said about it, but it always stuck with me. What a wonderfully random, yet awesome thing to say. Was he telling me that to warn me, or was he telling me that just in case I was looking?
I told Peggy this story last night before he passed, and she confirmed it. It turns out she was with him on that particular trip with a couple of friends of theirs. Not only did Jack and their friend get approached by a couple of ladies of the night, but a guy approached them too! Peggy said the first thing that caught her eye so many years ago with Jack was his sense of humor. That must be where my fondness for him comes from. Maybe that's what Lauren sees in me? Maybe attraction is a genetic trait. If so, I pray I can live up to be 1/4 the man that Jack Smith was. He will be truly missed.
I know that Jack is in heaven. I saw cirrus clouds in the sky on my way home today, that's how I know for sure. There have been cirrus clouds in the sky whenever someone close to me has died. It is one of the few things I remember about the day of Bobby's funeral. It's like God wraps the Earth in a protective blanket to comfort those of us left behind. I wish I could see Jack and Nanny meeting for the first time. They are going to get along famously. Jack was in a dance band. Nanny will love that.
Rest in Peace Jack. Your family, all of us, miss you.

Sanibel Island Day 2

Today's post brought to you by Lauren (with input from Matt).

Today we got up at the crack of dawn to go on a snorkeling/dolphin excursion. It was worth the early wake-up call because we saw tons of dolphins! I was nicknamed "Lauren the dolphin spotter" because I found the first two pods of dolphins on our way out to Cayo Costa. Our captain, Captain Jack of the "Salty," did a great job. He would pull around to where the dolphins were and they would play in our wake. We got some great video and pictures of the dolphins porpoising behind the boat. (Matt says, "Shouldn't it be called 'dolphining?'")


When we got to Cayo Costa we went snorkeling. The visibility wasn't fabulous but we had fun anyways. It was Matt's first time snorkeling. We got to play with some underwater scooters too, which was super fun. We may have gotten some video of coral, but we won't know until we can download it to the computer. I also got a quick kayak fix in. We would highly recommend Sanibel Island Cruise Lines...great trip. On the way back to shore, Matt spotted the third pod of the day.


The early morning and the sun and saltwater and the snorkeling led to a glorious midday nap back at the hotel. We then headed back to Sanibel for dinner at Matzaluna which had wonderful Italian food and one of the best margaritas I have ever had. Even though it was starting to storm, we headed to the next island over, Captiva Island. We stopped for some shopping but most stores were closing up since it was Sunday evening. The weather wasn't conducive to picture taking but we enjoyed the scenic drive in the rain. We also discovered where they keep the rednecks...(the arrow could probably be pointing in all directions).


We then headed towards the lighthouse end of Sanibel to get ice cream sundaes at Pinocchios. Matt had the "beachwalk" sundae which was made with Pinocchio's signature ice cream, "dirty sand dollar". I had a mud slide.

Tomorrow we unfortunately have to leave our vacation spot. We may stop at Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota on our way back to reality...can't hurt to see a few more dolphins and manatees and maybe a sea turtle or two.

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Sanibel Island Day 1

We got a little bit of a late start this morning, but made it to Sanibel around noon. We drove around for a bit looking for a good place to have lunch and came across a little place called the Over Easy Cafe. I had a grilled cheese with bacon and Lauren had a turkey club. It was really good. It reminded me of a place you would see on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network. Actually, most of the restaurants on Sanibel look like a place you'd see Guy Fieri at filming an episode.




Next we headed over to Tarpon Bay Explorers where we went out on a little boat tour of Tarpon Bay. We had a very funny and knowledgable guide named Captain Dave. He pointed some bird rookeries, where we saw pelicans, cormorants, a reddish egret, and some plain old white egrets. We also saw 4 manatees. Two mommies and two babies.



Next we headed over to the J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge to take a tram tour through the park. Along the way we saw osprey, yellow crowned night heron, more egrets (reddish, great, snowy, not so great), roseate spoonbills, a great blue heron, a little blue heron (no medium blue heron), and a red shouldered hawk. There were also plenty of the unofficial Florida state bird, the mosquito. Lauren is convinced that there were also some no-see-ums, but I didn't see any.



After the tram tour we headed over to the Blue Giraffe for dinner. I was disappointed though, because I was really looking forward to trying some giraffe steak. It seems they were out. I settled for plain old cow steak, and Lauren had Filet of Sole with some Crab and Lobster stuffing. We also had dessert. Hot fudge sundae for me and Key Lime pie for Lauren.

We then headed to the Sanibel Lighthouse around sunset. It was beautiful watching the sun set in one direction, and then turning around to see a giant thunderstorm rolling in. We managed to snap some great pics before it started raining though, so it was a successful excursion. We managed to make it halfway over the causeway before the rain hit us.




Stay tuned for tomorrow's post... We're going snorkeling and hopefully dolphin watching.

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New Camera

So I've been looking at cameras a lot lately and came to the realization that I am not a good enough photographer to use a DSLR. It would be a waste of money on me. So I've been looking at cameras that fall in between DSLRs and your regular point and shoots and came across the Nikon Coolpix P500. I liked it for a lot of reasons, but the two that drew me in were the 36x zoom, and the fact that you can record in 1080p with it. I love my little waterproof Sanyo for what it does, but it is lacking in features. It is great at the beach, the pool, the waterpark, etc. It is not great for shooting indoors, or stills. So I was at Best Buy yesterday and they had the P500 on sale as an open box item! It was such a great deal I couldn't believe it. I asked the guy working there if there was anything wrong with it and he said it was just missing the software that comes with it. I thought about it for awhile, and decided to get it. I got a spare battery as well because I learned my lesson with my current camera. Video really eats up the battery. I took it outside, loaded the battery and find out the zoom doesn't work. Dang it. I thought I had found such a great deal only to have one of the options I really wanted didn't work. I took it back inside and explained the situation. The guy at customer service called one of the girls in the camera department over, and she started trying to make it work. She brought over a brand new one and tried that one, and it worked perfectly. They asked if I just wanted to swap them out? I explained that I had gotten this one as an open box item and the girl said, well this one is open now too. So I got a brand new one at an AWESOME discount!
Well, since I have this fancy new camera, I had to take it out fora spin, right? So Lauren and I went to Lake Parker in Lakeland to do a little Geocaching. It was a lot of fun, and we found two micro-caches! This is the first time we have been able to find any micros, so we were pretty excited. We also saw three gators and a bunch of birds. There are still several caches there that we didn't find, so I imagine we will be going back. :)
Here are a couple of pictures from our excursion:










Until next time, peace!

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