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Christy and I both would like to send our congratulations to our good friends, Katie and Hani, on the birth of their first born, a son, Lucas John!  He is absolutely adorable!  Mom, Dad and baby are all home safe and sound and things are going great!  Congrats guys!  You can check them out on their blog, which is www.katieandhani.com.

We are also preparing for our beach trip coming up next week!  That’s right, we’re under single digits on the Countdown clock for Beachapalooza 2008!  Yay!  I know that we cannot wait to get down to Seagrove with all our friends and just relax and take it easy.

Also, you will probably notice a design change (again).  Sorry, but I’m still trying to find one I like and that I want to stick with.  So forgive the new paint on the walls yet again.

It’s Monday, and a good Monday to all!

I recently added a new link to the list and I wanted to give it some personal attention.  Prescott Place is the online home of Owen & Jessica Prescott, recently married and friends of mine.  Jessica is a very close friend to my sister-in-law Lindsay, and as such, I’ve gotten to know Jessica by proxy for many years.

Jessica is new to the blogging scene, so hop on by her blog at http://prescottplace.blogspot.com/ and check out the goodness.

Less than 3 weeks away from Beachapalooza 2008!

Greetings readers…it’s been a while since I came and talked to you about what all has been going on in my life, so I thought it best if I took the time to do that today.

I recently accepted a new job working for a great company here in Birmingham called Travel Nurse Solutions as a Recruiter. Basically, I call on RNs across the country attempting to place them in contract jobs we have open. I’m doing pretty well so far. This is the end of my third week and I’ve got one nurse who has an offer, and two others that will be submitted on other jobs. I really enjoy this place! It’s a very progressive office, and the people I work with are all great…well, except one person, but I just ignore her.

As many of you know, I spent this past season of American Idol doing reviews, and while Christy and I have been watching some more shows I wanted to review, like The Bachelorette and So You Think You Can Dance, I haven’t gotten around to the reviews yet. I think maybe I’m going to leave the Bachelorette reviews to IHateGreenBeans.com. If you haven’t been to this fantastic blog, you need to get your rear in gear and read up on her hilarious Bachelor and Bachelorette reviews.

The Las Vegas round of Dance was completed last night, so I intend on starting some sort of review next week as the Top 20 begin their performances. I’m not sure on how to go about it…it’s easier for me to critique singers since I have a good bit of experience in that area. I’m not much of a dancer, although I can definitely appreciate the talent and athleticism these dancers have.

Also, as many of you probably know, the 2008 Presidential Election is pretty much set to be Obama versus McCain. If you’re interested in keeping up with up-to-date polling information and commentary, without the bias of MSNBC or FOX News, check out a very cool blog called FiveThirtyEight.com. This blog is a fantastic place to get caught up on the latest polling data and get some great commentary on the process of how our officials are elected.

So I guess for now, that’s about it. I hope your summer’s are going great! Thanks for stopping by.

Friends are hard to come by.  True friends are really hard to come by.

So I preface this post with those somewhat ominous words.  But they are heartfelt and sincere.  Christy and I are really blessed to have a good many close friends here in Birmingham.  As most of you know, Rusty and Gina are very good friends of ours (and travel partners) and we were blessed to come across two more such wonderful people and friends this past fall when we embarked on our Mediterranean cruise.

Katie and Hani AbuGhazaleh live in Santa Barbara, CA, and we met them along with a few other couples on our trip.  We instantly bonded with them, and had a wonderful time getting to know them.  We sort of became attached to them more than the other couples on our cruise we hung out with, and vowed to stay in touch with each other after the trip.

Not only did we stay in touch with them (I talk to Katie through Gtalk 2-3 times a week and Hani through email about once or twice a month), but they invited us to come stay with them in Santa Barbara for a long weekend last month.  You don’t have to twist our arms to get us to go on vacation, but the opportunity to see Katie and Hani again was also a HUGE factor. 

We had a blast out in Santa Barbara!  We spent the first night just hanging around downtown, having dinner at this cool little Mexican cafe.  We spent our 1st full day in the Santa Ynez valley, famous for many great wineries.  We hit five wineries altogether, with 4-month pregnant Katie sweetly serving as Designated Driver (we have your back on your trip to ‘Bama, Katie…that I promise you!)  After hitting the wineries and having lunch at this amazing diner/cafe in Santa Ynez, we headed back to town and had dinner at this great Italian place downtown called Palazzio.  Christy and I had actually had dinner there once before as we had previously visited the Santa Ynez valley with our friends April and Ramey (who were living in California at the time).

Our Saturday was spent walking the boardwalk at the Santa Barbara pier, and having lunch at this awesome restaurant called Longboard’s.  You can check out a picture of me having one outstanding Bloody Mary on my Facebook page.  We drove a Surrey (a four-person bicycle) around the pier area for a while, got ice cream and then went to watch a movie (we were pretty pooped) at the theater downtown.  After the movie, we headed to Katie’s parents house for an old-fashioned BBQ (what we in the South call a cookout).  It was great!  Katie’s family was so incredibly inviting (much like Katie and Hani, now we know where they get it!), and we had a blast.  Sunday came quickly and we were on a plane back to Alabama.

I can’t tell you how nice it is to have friends like them, who are so inviting and fun to be around, but who are also so very real and genuine.  We are truly blessed.

Recently, Hani got one of his “honey-do’s” done by editing and posting their wedding video up on their site.  I highly encourage you to go to their blog at katieandhani.com and viewing the video when you get time.  You’ll get a glimpse into the couple they are and the great family and friends they are surrounded with.  My only regret is that we didn’t know them then or we’d be all over that video baby! 

And in case you didn’t get it so far…Katie and Hani, thanks for having us out to visit.  We can’t wait to return the favor and have you all visit us in the Dirty South! 

About a week ago, me and my sister-in-law, Jill, went to CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) for lunch.  They are currently running a contest/promotion called “CPK says Thank You!” where you get these contest cards that can only be opened by the store manager the next time you come to CPK.  Last week, Jill and I each got one of these such cards.  There are various cash prizes involved, and things like free pizza, appetizers, 10% off your meal, etc.  It says “Every Card’s A Winner!” so hey, that’s something.

Well today, Jill texts me today that says we should go back to CPK and have the manager open our cards (and have lunch there)…so we go.  The manager comes over and opens my card first…and I’m not even kidding…I win $2500!!!!  How friggin’ cool is that?!?  I’ve never won anything in my life in these contests…so it’s very cool.  Jill’s card had 10% off her next meal there…sorry Jill.

So that was quite the nice surprise today!  Again, sorry for the delay in the Idol review…I hear it’s quite a doozy and as soon as Christy and I get home from the airport tonight, we’re gonna fire up the DVR and get at it.

Here’s something new I’m going to be doing each week.  There’s a great site I’ve found recently called Someecards.com, and they have some of the funniest little e-card greetings you’ve ever seen.  Each week, I’m going to post one here for your enjoyment.  Here’s this week’s e-card.

Hey, what’s this?!? A post that’s not about American Idol?? Sure you jest.

Nope. I jest not.

It’s the weekend, and it’s the last weekend in March. I cannot believe how quickly 2008 is going. Baseball season starts this weekend as the NCAA Tournament is wrapping up, then it’ll be time for our trip out to California to see our friends Hani and Katie (hey guys!), then down to Orlando for a long weekend at Disney World. After that, it’ll be time for lazing by the pool with friends as the summer drags on…and before you know it, it’s going to be my birthday (August 2nd, I accept Paypal donations and Best Buy giftcards) and then Katie will have her baby (it’s going to be a boy, BTW…congrats Katie!!!), and then football will be here.

Football season will be full of fun as it always is as my Auburn friends try to convince me that Alabama isn’t coming back into prominence and that Auburn is going to be SEC Champions. And before you know it, September will pass into October, and Halloween will be here. And then in a blink of an eye, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be upon us and cold weather will welcome itself back to Alabama.

See how quickly time passes? Do me these three favors:

1) Download some Jack Johnson for your music player of choice (any album will do, but his latest “Sleeping Through The Static” is pretty darn good).
2) Block off a couple days and head down to the beach. I prefer Destin, but others prefer Orange Beach. You can’t go wrong either way.
3) Take your favorite beverage and a beach chair at sunset to the beach and sit down and listen to the waves and drink your beverage, listening to a little Jack Johnson and the sound of the waves crashing.

Enjoy life. You only get one. However it is you enjoy it…just do so.

And with that, I’m to do just that with some friends at a couple’s baby shower. Take care friends…Top 9 Week on Idol is only days away!

I just downloaded the new Jack Johnson single, “If I Had Eyes”, which is a bit more electric than his usual stuff.  I like it, so the album is pre-ordered.  More news on that in February.

I took the job with IACT, and I could not be happier about it.  This company’s philosophy is 180 degrees different from the VCO.  Speaking of that, we’re getting together with some VCO folks tonight at Pub 261 as a little farewell for me.  I’m going to miss all these wonderful people, but those who are my close friends will still be my close friends no matter where I am.

Here’s something ironic…I have two fantasy football teams this year, one is a pay league (just $20) and one is a free league.  I’m in the playoffs in both leagues, but because of Brady’s tank-job on Sunday, I’m in the consolation game in my pay league, and in the finals of my free league for the same reason (my opponent had Brady).

I think we are just scratching the surface of what’s out there with regards to steroid use in baseball.  Several players have come forward confirming that they used substances like HGH and steroids during their careers since the Mitchell Report was released.  It will only continue.

Amy Lee’s voice is pretty awesome.  I’m in love with that song “My Immortal” right now.

Are dreams the incarnation of true desire or complete randomness (like this post)?

I’ve pretty much stopped playing LOTRO.  Guild Wars is now loaded up and I’m enjoying that.  You can solo that game for a while.

Peppermint Mocha CoffeeMate Creamer is nearly as good as sex.  You know what I’m talking about Pickerings!

Enough randomness!

Hola amigos!  I know it’s been a while since I rapped at cha…

So I discovered something I guess I already knew…since I have a 60GB portable flash drive, I can keep all my files on it and just use the laptop’s hard drive for games and such.  It’s quite a discovery, since I only have an 80GB hard drive on my machine itself.  So I moved all my documents, music and movies to the flash drive and reloaded them onto iTunes.  And what do you know…it works just fine.  Just re-sync the iPood and I’m done.  Pretty cool there.

And just when I thought I was getting more coordinated with myself, I was taking the trash down to the street on Wednesday night and feel down a couple steps, landing hard on my knees and skinning one pretty bad.  After nearing crying from the pain, I had to laugh.  I mean, it was one of the single most clutzy things I’ve every done.

The company Christmas (sorry Holiday) party is tomorrow night and a big group of us are going in a limo…with pre and post game cocktails at our place.  It should be quite the shindig.  Pictures and story at 11.

And I have NO Christmas shopping done yet.  Does anybody know a good gift for $40 I can get for this party I’m going to next Friday?  I’m serious.