I really like this picture that I took last time we visited Florence. Too bad the camera that I took it with is now worth more as a paper weight than it is as a camera…

I initially tried to post this using Flickr’s “blog this” functionality but found it quite limiting in that it doesn’t let you choose positioning or image size.

This past Wednesday was my birthday. I came home from jammin’ out with the band to find this awesome cake that Becca had made for me. Not only did she bake this crazy awesome homemade cake filled with delicious pudding and butter cream frosting, but she also frosted a Greek key on the side to accentuate the masculinity of the cake!

When we bought our house back in March, we decided that the one lesser attractive part of the home was the manner in which the backyard presented itself. When the house was built, they had simply poured a slab of concrete outside the back sliding door and that was that.

Well, we decided that we’d like to have something a little more inviting going on out there, so Becca’s dad and I took it upon ourselves to build a deck one weekend.

I wasn’t really sure what the plan would be to build it, but with her dad being experienced in this sort of thing I figured he would have some excellent suggestions. The existing concrete slab provided a good starting point as it left us in the position where we didn’t have to worry about digging post holes or any of that nonsense.

After 12 hours of work on a beautiful sunny day, we finally had the deck completed. Here’s the before and after pictures.

A lot has happened since June 11, 2007. I’ve been super busy with the usual attempts to balance work and home life. However, there’s been some super exciting things going on that I’ve failed to blog about!

Since I’ve been really bad about updating my blog in the last year (and I promise the drought is ending), I feel that it is much needed to update everybody on what I’ve been up to. Consider this my excuse list for why I’ve been such a bad blogger. Here’s a brief list of all the great things that have happened in my life since this time last year.

Read on to see the list! (more…)

I went on my first fishing trip in about 3 years (I’m ashamed to say) yesterday with a few friends.  We headed over to the Breitenbush River, just to the NE of Detroit Lake here in Oregon.  The river bank was awesome, with pretty fast paced water shooting over rock formations.  However, we didn’t see a trout all day…

I’ve posted my photos from this trip on flickr, view them here!

Here in Eugene, it seems to rain a lot. And by a lot, I mean every other day (lately). So, I decided to wear my rain coat to work. When I got inside I was greeted by a new variety of coat rack, complete with a sign that read “Long Coats Only”. Then I hopped over to my email. To the entire company, from Thomas Buscaglia — it read…

This is just a friendly reminder of our coat rack policy. I hate to have to do this, but there seem to be a few people among us who seem to be forgetting that these rules are in place for a reason. I won’t name any names, but you know who you are. Let’s try to remember: short coats go on short racks, long coats go on long racks. That’s all. If we all do our part we can keep this a pleasant work environment for everyone, tall and short.

Thank you.

Here is a picture of Ben Garney (one of the taller individuals here in the office at 6′7″) after he hung up his coat on the “World’s Tallest Coat Rack”.

Turns out that my coat is touching the floor because I am not privileged enough to use the “Long Coats Only” coat rack

She said yes! =)

On Christmas-eve-eve, somebody decided to attempt to steal my car (or maybe my insanely fashionable sunglasses from Kohl’s out of my car). So anyways, I got to wake up to my driver-side window being smashed. Keep in mind this car is only six months old so I was pretty unhappy with having to drop a bunch of cash to have a new window put in it. Luckily the Saturn dealership was open that day and did a great job of detailing my interior to rid my car of all evidence of the disaster. However, I had to go an entire week without a car. Things are back to normal now but here are some photos commemorating the incident.

To say that my life has been a whirlwind the last month plus would be nothing short of an understatement. So many exciting things are happening and so many things to keep up with.

To make up for being a horrible blogger the past month, I am going to try and jam a bunch of posts out the next few days with a lot of exciting things for people to read– so come back often and subscribe to my feed if you feel so inclined.

I have been trying to identify a good time to fly back to Michigan for the holidays. Being new to this whole commercial airline thing (never having flown around Christmas / New Years), I have been trying to figure out how I can keep the pain threshold down on buying plane tickets. I actually have come across two sites that do a really good job of outlining current fares and trends. The first, Farecast, is a very nice little web app created to help you know when to buy. The site was designed with much statistical analysis in mind and does its best to let you know if now is the right time or if you should wait. The second of these sites is Kayak.com. This site is a little simpler, serving as an aggregator of all airline fares, but it is still a nice way to evaluate trends and see what rates are across the board.

Scott Bozack of Big Gig Productions recently just returned from a European Tour with Ok Go and The Hard Lessons, serving as a sound engineer throughout the tour. You can check out an awesome video of The Hard Lessons’ performance in Melkweg by heading over to FabChannel and searching “hard lessons” or selecting their concert from the list. Enjoy rockin’ out to that. Also, check out their track “Hey, Hey, My, My — Neil Young” by heading over to the music samples section of Big Gig Productions.

Headed over to Bend, Oregon yesterday with my brother and my girlfriend to enjoy the Detroit Tiger’s game (which they lost) and some fine beer at Deschutes Brewery. This place makes some fine ales, especially their winter seasonal, Jubelale, the Black Butte Porter. These are both most haves if you’re into quality beer whatsoever.

/emo incoming

You know you’re starting to grow up when many of the girls you used to date, wanted to date, or decided not to date are all getting married. It’s pretty wild, but everytime I turn around it seems that I hear about another friend from the past getting hitched.

This post isn’t emo in the sense of OMG I am lonely and want to get married, because I don’t [not right now]. But rather this post is emo in the sense that I am recognizing how many milestones and phases in life I have already hit. Of course I still have millions more on the list that I’m working toward everyday!