If anyone knows how to get to his or her intended destination quicker than a frothermucker, it's Luke and I.  Luke had to go to Lynnhaven Mall after work today, so like old times (when he lived at Reflections) we raced home like Dale Earnhardt might, had he not died.  Fueled by a remixed 007 theme, every turn, acceleration, brake, and lane change I made were all oh-so painfully perfect and in-sync with Luke, it was sickening.  Sharon and Kris will be lucky as hell when they're in labor -- I'm tellin' you.

     I just finished my latest framing project : Seattle's Skyline.  I'm planning on hanging it under my framed pool shot courtesy atowers.

     In other news, procastination is my life.  I've missed out on $100 at the Men's Wearhouse due to the fact that I never used my two $50 gift certificates that are now expired.  I also still have to ammend my 1999's taxes ... it's 2002 ... I gotta get on that.

3/22/2002 | Friday
     After work, Sharon and I drove to Richmond for dinner at my parents house.  My awesome mother had the whole junk setup when we arrived.  Some history to the story, every year that my mother asks me what I want for dinner, I always answer hard-shelled crabs.  Being out of season, I never get my wish -- being a mother, she got me the next best thing: a lobster!  It actually lived in my parent's fridge for a day and got boiled alive Friday night (thanks Mike).  Not only that, but my Grandmother hooked me up with an Eggnog Bavarian Cream cake, which also features an out-of-season Eggnog.  She happened to have a carton of it frozen, and used it all just for me.  It's good to be loved.

3/23/2002 | Saturday
     On Saturday morning, we woke up early to drive to Washington DC.  The drive was pretty boring until we got there and I had things to photograph.  My Dad amused himself with my Gameboy part of the ride.  Once we arrived at our hotel, got checked, and grabbed some grub.  My mom, Sharon, and myself decided to conquer the city.  The three of us had never really been on the Metro, so it was quite a task.  I managed to get a complete grasp of the system after the day was over.  Once you make the mistake of getting on the wrong train the first time, the system slowly seems to make sense.  We hit up a few sites, namely the Whitehouse, the Washington Monument(sadly, this turned out sub-par), and fuckin' 12th street.  We ate at Rock Bottom that night -- some gay pub where the soft drinks weren't soft drinks at all -- they were merely watered down soft drink syrup.

3/24/2002 | Sunday
     Sunday was Marathon Day -- the point of the whole trip.  We got up way too early, treated ourselves to some breakfast bar at the Econo Lodge, and headed out to cheer on my sister.  Owning the Metro system the day before, it was no sweat to get ourselves to Mile Post 12.  I got some good pictures of my sister, as well as the whole city.  It was a long ride home to Virginia Beach, but it was a weekend well spent.

     I am back from DC.  I do have a lot of pictures to go through (again).  Yet I just don't seem to have any more time to do the things I want/need to do.  I've got a list of things to do...  a $50 certificate to the Men's Wearhouse to spend, taxes to amend, bills to pay, Sharon to love... the list goes on.

     Major Payne night was a.... success?  The movie was O.K., but only because they made jokes about colostomy bags.  You throw anything about pooping into a joke, and it becomes more funny.  Then you talk about pooping into bags... well that just opens up a whole new world.

     I got 71st place in DPChallenge.  Apparently I need to put more effort into shots, or just not submit crap I'm really not feeling.  Expect updates in the coming days, and one thousand apologies for the lx-outage.

     I got a few nice surprises this morning when I came to work.  The first, most surprising of all, was from 8hours.  He'd hinted at it a few times before, but that's how he operates: deceptive angles, if you will.

     Then I got a nice little wrapped gift from The Man Who Loves Me.  Some truly superb comical reading material.  Deep Thoughts, because they own and Dilbert, because that's our life at work.

     I'm waiting for my life to slow down -- apparently it isn't going to.  Last weekend Seattle, this weekend Richmond and then DC with baby.  :)  Actually DC to see my sister run in a marathon.  While actually "watching" a marathon isn't fun, it'll be a great photography experience for me.  It'll help me hone both my people picture and action picture taking skills.  We'll see if anything at all turns out.  Until then...

     ...And I'm back from Seattle.  The last few days are all a blur.  And what's fitting is that my camera forgot what the date was, so every picture I took is marked 1/1/2001.  It compliments the fact that my memory is so on target.  I'll try to give you a brief synopsis of my weekend and early week events:

3/16/2002 | Saturday
     After cuddling with Nick all night long, a loving Sharon dropped the both of us off at ORF around 6:30 AM -- that's 2hrs & 30mins ahead of schedule.  Nick advised that it would be a good idea to get there super early so we could sit around with our thumbs stuck straight up our asses for a good 2 hours.  It's okay because it gave us time to get breakfast and then take a bunch of pictures.

     We arrived, if I remember correctly, around 1 PM PST.  SeaTac apparently has their shit together because we only had time to walk off the plane and down to the baggage return when the conveyor belt started turning.  Our bags were the first two out -- I'm glad they recognize what the deal is.

    Nick, Wells, and I ran around the city, jus' holdin' it down, and then met up with Ryano: my best internet friend to date.  We all had a big orgy and then went to dinner.  I ordered Yakisoba just so that I could have a little bit of Sharon with me while I was on vacation.

3/17/2002 | Sunday
     I fell asleep pretty early the previous night by PST standards, so I woke up on Sunday ready to tackle the city.  We ate breakfast at some joint I don't recall with two of Wells' friends.  Then we went to see the Sound Garden (not the band, yo) -- which was conveniently closed.  Next we went to some beach and rolled around in the sand like Chris Isaac, which shortly followed the Space Needle for $11.  It was a pretty badass view that I would like to have seen both at night and in the daytime, but not for eleven bucks.  On the way out we saw Ronald McDonald.  I could only snag one picture, which isn't much for proof, but man was it a rush seein' him in person.

     That evening, we ate at some Thai (thigh) food place.  The food was superb and the price -- unbeatable.  Dinner was followed up by a return to Gasworks Park for some night pictures.  Sadly I can't use them for the current DPChallenge

3/18/2002 | Monday
     Monday we ate at I-Hop -- thank god they have one in every city.  Then we ventured to Snoqualmie Falls to see the waterfall and walk the trails.  Sadly, I had minimal film left, so I could only take a few shots.  I could've filled up a 128mb card a few times with the scenery.

3/19/2002 | Tuesday
     PB&J for breakfast, Ryano left, Taco Bell for Lunch, Pizza & the Dude for dinner.  Again, I got to the airport entirely too early.  I decided to stop for a beverage on my way to the gate, which made me feel entirely too old -- not to mention a little buzzed.  I boarded the plane right on time, fell asleep,

3/20/2002 | Wednesday
     and woke up in a different time zone.  Wednesday morning was no fun at all.  I sat in an airport for 4 hours.  ORF didn't have their shit together at all.  I had to wait a good 20 minutes to get my bag.  Luke's not always there when I call, but he's always on time -- he picked me up exactly 2 minutes after I grabbed my bag off the conveyor belt.  That's why he's my dawg.

     Sorry for the horribly long update.  That's what happens when I hold off on doin' them for a week.  Chris asked me today what I thought the best part of my trip was.  I surprisingly said the flight.  It'd been 14 years since I'd flown, so it wasn't like I remembered a thing about it.  It was pretty mind blowing seeing the world from so high up.  It brought forth so many unanswered questions I have about everything.  For a minute there I thought I was in the movie Fight Club.  And to top it all off it made me realize that when you're above the clouds -- everyday is a nice, sunny day.

     I promise this is the last story about my warranties -- only because this is the end-all-be-all of warranty stories.  I'll sum the whole story up real quick for you:  10/26/2000 I buy my Playstation2 from Best Buy and get my picture in the newspaper for doing so.  ~1/1/2001 I break up my Playstation2 so that I can play burned games on it with my GameShark.  ~12/25/2001 I put my Playstation2 back together and take it to my parent's house in Richmond.  ~1/1/2002 I re-open my Playstation2 so that I can play burned games again...  Sadly the games Gameshark CD doesn't boot.  I learn that no Playstation1 games are able to be played on my Playstation2, while DVDs and PS2 discs work fine.  2/22/2002 I send my Playstation2 for a replacement under my Warranty.

     This brings me to today.  3/14/2002.  I received a voucher for $313.49 for anything in Best Buy that I want.  I will shortly be purchasing my second Playstation2.  Sadly enough, I won't have time to play it this evening as I have 45,000 things to do to prepare for my ~12 hour trip on Saturday.  Sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it.  Which leads me to my final question:

     How do you entertain yourself for 12 hours at a few airports and in a few airplanes?  So far I've only got a Gameboy Color and a Camera.

     I have only a few days left in the week to get a bunch of things done.  Saturday morning I leave for Seattle.  I'm not looking forward to Saturday very much.  Arriving at an airport 3 hours ahead of schedule just so that I can make the flight is something that's not very appealing.   I need to catch up on a lot of sleep now.

     Josh, I need it, k?

     I experienced paintball for the first time today.  Alex, Athens, Chris, Luke, Noah, and I went out to a slightly secluded site in Chesapeake to ruin some fools with our guns n' ammo.  I was expecting some nice woodsy shit with towering trees for cover, but naah: They had a huge field with 3 different playing areas: Maze, Hyper Ball, Speed Ball.  The whole operation was a little sketchy, but we had fun regardless.  I learned that instead of going out like a pussy and yelling "SURENDER", that you should just blast the guy 5 feet in front of you.  Overall, I don't think I'd pay $45 to do it again.  Maybe buy a gun, and go out to some woodsy area with friends and play 2v2 or 3v3 or something.

     New pictures, new slides, new song -- as indicated by the exclamations in the navigation.  Enjoy.

     I am believing in Karma more and more everyday now.  You might soon see images of the Dalai Lama on my web site.  I ain't messin' around either.  It all started with the computer controlled opponents in Counter-Strike.  Luke and I would be playing, I'd run out and get shot within 1/2 of a second, luke would follow shortly after that and be able to sit there for 10 seconds while picking off the suddenly confused opponents.

     Now, I know what you're thinking :: coincidence.  Yeah, it could be, but I remember one evening when I got pulled over by a cop for taking a "right on red" of all things.  Do you think this cop let me off?  Hell no.  Do you know why?  Karma.  I got crappy Karma.  The cop gave me a ticket that came with an $80 fine as well as 4 points on my license.  The next day when I went to work and told the story to Luke, he reminds me about how he's been pulled over 5 or 6 times and only gotten a ticket once or twice.  That's interesting, because I'm 2 for 2.

     As I explained earlier, I had struggled with my computer for all of Sunday night where I'd figured out what the problem was.  So Monday Luke and I went to the computer store to get a new power supply.  He put it the new one in as I returned the old one and signed the slip for the warranty papers.  When we get back to work, he plugs it in over at his desk, turns it on, and it works -- no problems.  You do realize if I had taken it over to my desk and plugged it in, I would've faced many a problem.  What it comes down to is that Luke just has better Karma than I do -- and there isn't a thing that I can do about it.

     PS: There are now 27 submissions to the current challenge.  WTF?

     Computer woes have caused much stress in the Oliver family apartment.  Amid spring cleaning I managed to figure out that the fan in the power supply stopped fanning.  I implemented a cooling system to try and salvage some things off the harddrive in the event of a crash.  It didn't work too well, but then again, it wasn't that cold outside.  I'm not really pissed about it though, because guess what I have?  A warranty on my case/fan.  I own?  I do.

     19 submissions on dpchallenge in 3 days.  I fear the next challenge will have far too many entries.  Guess we need to start thinkin' again.

-Begin Review-

     Tonight I have witnessed perhaps one of the poorest movies that everyone but me seemed to enjoy.  This movie is "The Game".  I'm not exactly sure why it has taken me this long to actually see the movie, but now that I have, I will no longer file imagery of a puzzle of Michael Douglas' head under the great films I want to see category.  I will instead be reminded of a great idea done poorly.  It could have been the mood I was in, but I just couldn't let myself fall for the far beyond realistic plot.  Scene after scene was filled with flaw after flaw.

-End Review-

       I had so many more things to say about The Game as I was watching.  I think I rolled my eyes at least 45 times while viewing.  I really do need to start bringing a notepad around with me.  I have a voice recorder on my phone, but it doesn't really work for me to bring it out in a movie and make mental notes to myself.

     Note to Self:  Pay your rent and your late fee since you're now fucked because you have no 5 day grace period because yes it's already March 2nd.  As well, get a copy of your birth certificate for Vancouver.  Thanks.

I love you blue ribbon: