Weather Flashback

Just a little weather comparison between Iowa and home.

Home:
Iowa:

Yep. It's good to be home!

Atlanta recap

As most know, we went to Atlanta to go the 2008 SEC championship game, courtesy of my grandmother. She willingly gave us her tickets, so we put them to good use. Who wouldn't have? Along with the game tickets, she provided two for the SEC fanfare too.

10:00 - We arrived in downtown Atlanta, found our parking spot just east of the dome, and headed into the crowd. We stumbled on a parade and kept moving...

11:00 - Made it into the World Congress Center, watched some kids play flag football, took some photos with the Chick-fil-a cows, the Nissan Sports Illustrated group, and enjoyed the crowd atmosphere.

2:00pm - We figured we'd beat the crowd and head into the dome early. This is where we got the notice that I had to be turned away until I stored my camera elsewhere. Apparently, some kind of SEC rule prohibits cameras with interchangable lenses and lenses over 6inches long.

2:45pm - Finally get back to the stadium, and now have to stand in line for what seems forever to get cleared to get back into the stadium.

3:20pm - We realized our seats were actually in the nosebleed section, 10-12 rows from the top!

4:00pm - Kickoff. Since I didn't have the camera, I had to settle with the low quality cell phone camera.

Both schools came out and did the national anthem for everyone.Nothing really took well during the game, but the extra lights helped for post game. Unfortunately, the outcome was 31-20 in the favor of Florida. Not what we were hoping for, but we still had fun.

Again, I could take too many post game pictures that would turn out, but there really wasn't a whole lot to photograph since we lost.

We left the game, headed to a really late dinner and still made it back to Kim's apartment within an hour. Somehow we completely avoided most of the traffic. That was the best part.

Sunday - Georgia Aquarium. Too be continued...

Dumb rules...

Quick post...details to come later...

NO CAMERAS W/ INTERCHANGABLE LENSES ALLOWED IN THE GEORGIA DOME

What kind of crap is that? I show up at the gate 2hrs early to get told I can't bring the camera w/ the telephoto lens since it's a "professional camera" and I have to take it back to the car. A point and shoot is allowed, but nothing with interchangable lenses.

Yet amazing how many others we saw with nice SLR's that are interchangable. Talk about making you mad!

The actual breakdown to come later...

Atlanta or BUST

Bethany and I scored two tickets to the 2008 SEC Championship Game, (No.1) ALABAMA vs (No.2 AP/No.4 espn) FLORIDA for today and I am pumped.
We drove in last night from Birmingham and visited with our dear friend Kim (Thanks Kim) to be in place for the game. Last night was Mellow Mushroom before crashing at her pad for the night.

This morning, yea we're getting ready to head out to the game! We'll be there celebrating and pulling for the TIDE! We'll keep you updated...

This post is brought to you live from Atlanta on location in Kim's Apartment...

When it rains, it pours....

Well, I thought that once the month of November was past us, the rest of my bouts of bad luck would pass too. At least Robert is home now to help me with everything.

It all started when I went up to Birmingham near the beginning of November and decided to paint our downstairs hallways. While taping things off and getting stuff ready to paint, I heard a buzzing in the living room. Turned out there were about ten or so wasps congregating in the living room windows. They were pretty content to stay there when it was pretty cold in the morning, but by the afternoon when things had warmed up, they were buzzing all over the place. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to get rid of them, but I ended up deciding on a fogger. The only bad thing about the fogger is that I had to leave for about 4 hours. At least the lawn needed mowing, so I killed a bunch of time doing that. When I was done, I had lots of wasp bodies littering the living room.

That same weekend I had big plans for getting all of my laundry done. Turns out though, that when you leave your house for an extended period of time, you should turn the water off to your washer. Apparently, we had water leaking from one of our connections for a while leaving a bit of water damage behind.

Because of all the distractions, I didn't get my hallways completely painted. I figured Robert could help me out before Thanksgiving, but he ended up having to stay on a little longer than we expected. No big deal.....we just have primed walls at the moment :). So, I cleaned up what mess I could and went back to Montgomery.

The weekend before Robert came home, I went back to Birmingham to finish cleaning up the messes I had left behind earlier. Sunday morning, Java woke me up with that infamous gagging sound that precedes the inevitable. It was apparent that she had swallowed a few rocks the day before, and the larger ones escaped the best way they could. After upchucking three rocks, she was still pretty uncomfortable, so I called the emergency vet clinic because she obviously couldn't have eaten these rocks during the middle of the week.....she had to do it over the weekend. After an X-ray showed that one rock had made it into her intestines, the emergency vet decided to hook her up to fluids, keep her overnight and update me once before going off duty and assuming that I would just transfer her to our regular vet on Monday. So I picked her up Monday morning and we were on our way with an envelope of X-rays, no records and a bag of fluids. At this point in time, I had no idea where the rock was or when the last time X-rays had been taken. Our regular vet did an X-ray, said the rock was moving along and sent me home with Java and fiber rich canned food. After all of that, the rock made its escape Monday night and things have been going well for Java since then. Red on the other hand goes into the vet this Thursday for a dental and lump removal.....

I figured things would fall into place once Robert came home, and they have for the most part. Except his truck is now doing funny things, so off to the dealer that will go. I just love how everything decides to fall apart right around the holidays.

On a lighter note, we are getting back into a routine and things are getting back to normal. We had a great holiday and hope that everyone else did too :)!

Random Catch-up

Ok, so we got behind yet again... (what else is new?)

Here's a quick recap:

1. I landed in BHM Tuesday (11/25) night, late. I found an iPhone at the Cincinnati airport sitting on the chair arm. I gave it to the desk attendant, but I still hope whoever lost it, manages to find it. That's a tough loss.

2. Family came and visited on 11/25 through 11/30. We had celebratory Thanksgiving dinner including turkey, stuffing, cornbread dressing, frozen cranberry salad, squash casserole, green beans, and both sweet & mashed potatoes. This is apparently the first time my "yankee family" has ever had cornbread dressing....

3. Iron Bowl. I don't need to elaborate too much, it may hurt the feelings of the Auburn fans around here. We were able to get tickets from my grandmother, so Michael, Bethany, myself, and Amanda got to enjoy a great game. Well, Michael & I enjoyed a great game. For those unsure, Bama beat the drum to a tune of 36-0! Roll Tide.

4. Christmas...Time to decorate...We'll post photos later, when everything is done...

Lessons Learned

As I mentioned earlier, it was cold last night. It got into the single digits last night around these parts. Some are excited, because the colder it gets, the faster the lake freezes, and the quicker the ice fishing season starts. Great. Not me!

Well, on the way to the post office this morning, I made a rather interesting discovery. Drinks freeze in single digit temperatures. On my previous trip to Cedar Falls last Tuesday, I bought a Mountain Dew. I left it in the cupholder, didn't go anywhere yesterday, and forgot about it last night. This morning, on the way to the post office, I noticed the 'brick' of Dew sitting there...Luckily it didn't explode in the cupholder.
After noticing the Mtn. Dew, I then made the realization that I had a 6pk of waters in the trunk. They've been there for a good while now too...After a few uses, I recycle the bottles, and get new ones out of the car. Well this morning, yep, they were pretty frozen too.

The bulging bottle...guess I got lucky. Of the 6, 4 of them are okay. Two actually busted and cracked the plastic from the neck to the base. Again, luckily it is so cold, they stayed frozen, adhered themselves to the carpet in the trunk, and just needed to be thrown away. The others, well one is a slush with a rather large bulge through the bottle, and the other is just frozen solid. Again, call me lucky.

I'll put these back in my fridge and try to drink them quickly before I head home. Can't take them with me on the flight...

Note to self: When freezing, remove everything from the car. Probably safer that way!

There should be laws...

...about it being so darn cold. Last night we hit single digits...6*. That's cold. Today, currently, it's 10*. At least it's warming up some.

Coming Home

I've been here since Aug. 1st working. My work here is done and it's time for me to start heading home. After being here this long, I've started calling the hotel home, but I'm ready to really get home. Home, here I come!

I have everything wrapped up, most everything packed, questions answered, travel arrangements made, and now, just hurry up and wait.

Under one week...

I'll see everyone when I get home

I just thought it was cold

I thought it was cold earlier....it's REAL COLD now!
I went out to an early dinner at 4:30 for wings, football, and drinks. When I left to come home for the 2nd half of the Bama game at 8, I already had ice all over the car.

Yea. It's COLD.

Still fallin'

This is really something I can look forward to. It's nice to know I'm not having to pay out my first born for a gallon of gas.
This is taken at the Pilot just beside my hotel and the interstate. The crazy thing is that it's $1.87 about 5mi down the road away from the interstate.

The crazy thing is that regular unleaded is usually more expensive than the super unleaded, all because of the ethanol. The regular has no ethanol in it, so it's more expensive. Amazing what happens when the state has huge tax incentives for "green gas".

More of the Windmill

There are still quite a few windmill workers in the area around here. Just earlier this week, we say another convoy of blades heading down the highway. This is a bad photo, but it's from the 5th floor windo of the hotel.
That's one blade on the truck. It's a pain in the rear when trying to pass them on the interstate. The most common ones around here are close to 150ft long!

This is cold

Yea it's cold. This was the forcast at 11am this morning.
We still have snow lingering around on the grass around us, and ice patches in the parking lots. Definitely colder than back home!

I woke up to snow

As usual, I threw open the window curtian around 6:30 this morning to notice it had snowed during the night. It wasn't much, but it was snow. And us 'southern folk' don't get to see too much snow.

So, just before the morning meeting, I ran out and snapped a few photos for everyone to enjoy. Guess this means that it's really about to start getting cold!

By the way, this is my newest rental car, a two door Chevy Cobalt. Not too terribly bad. I'm sure it's "winter driving" capapbilities may not be the best, but it won't be too bad (I hope).

According to the latest weather reports, it's supposed to snow off & on for the next 4-5days with the high being 37*. We'll see what happens by then though.

Back in Iowa

My vacation is over and I'm back here in Iowa. The vacation itself was pretty good and worth going home for, but it was very short lived.

While home:
--Dad had surgery on his back (10/30) and is finally back home. Surprisingly, he went home pretty early after such a serious surgery. Amazing. He's still got some pains, a 7inch cut, and can't walk very far, but at least he's home.

--We trick-or-treated on 10/31. Bethany, myself, her parents, and Mike all came to the house to pass out candy and eat dinner, and generally do nothing. We burned through 6 bags of candy by roughly 8'oclock. We had droves of kids showing up looking for candy. I carved our pumpkin in about 20mins for the night, and didn't take a single photo of it. Nothing elaborate. Triangle eyes, buckteeth, candle inside...yea nothing fancy. Not long after the kiddies came, we went to bed in anticipation of the race.

--I ran in the Vulcan 10k run on 11/1. It was a new PR for my 10k, but definitely not what I was shooting for. I finished in 1:08:08, placing #1303 out of 1550 runners. Now, my leg is still hurting from the run and I'm willing to bet that means a long time off from running! I have one more race for the year that I'd like to work on so we'll see how that goes.

--Roll Tide. After the race, Mrs. C, Bethany & I drove to Tuscaloosa, tailgated shortly with the gang on campus, and then went to the UA vs Ark. St. game for homecoming. It was nice to get to go to a ballgame finally. Alabama won 35-0. The best part was that Texas Tech beat Texas throwing us to No. 1 in the nation! ROLL TIDE.

-- I packed and headed back out on Sun 11/2.

The interesting thing is that now that I packed all warm clothes, it's turned warm in Iowa. Today's high is supposed to be 69*. Yesterday was about 65*. I guess it's okay though, b/c the weather is predicting snow for the weekend. Guess there's no way avoiding it when I'm this far north.

I'll be heading home for good soon. See you all shortly.