The record company is gonna give me lots of money and everything's going to be alright

Once again, I had a pretty darn good weekend. Much like last weekend, I went to Grand Isle (the only beach type place in Louisiana), but worked this time. The international Tarpon Fishing Rodeo was this weekend. To sum it up, 20,000 people on a little island, 3,000 of them fishing for the biggest fish. All of them drunk.

I've never been to a fishing rodeo, and to answer kelly's question ... It's not "crazy cajuns catching fish with a lasso." It's just a bunch of fisherman spending three days trying to catch the biggest fish they can. I saw Tuna, Flounder, Tarpon, Dolphin (not the flipper, cute kind), Redfish and a bunch of other stuff I had never heard of before.

So last weekend I considered my self quite the angler for catching a few lbs of crab using turkey necks and a string. But I was put to shame this weekend while watching multi-million dollar boats hauling in 100+ pound fish.

I've decided to be one of the 17,000 non-fisherman at this event next year.

Now, here's what's in the photos...

1: Me catching crabs for the first time. (That didn't come out how I thought it would)
2: One of the Tarpon getting weighed
3: People getting drunk at the Rodeo

PS: 107 points to the person who catches the relationship between the Subject Line and the Post.

500 feet

Well, I think it's safe to say that I had the greatest birthday ever this year. Lucky 26th I always say. (actually, I've never said that, but I thought it sounded funny.)

I spent the first part of my day working on this blog here. Learning how to edit HTML and all that good stuff. (Yes Joel, I know you could have had it done in minutes... Seconds even).

Around 4 p.m. Misty picked me up, made me close my eyes, and drove me to the airport where a helicopter was waiting for us. WOW. I've never ridden in a chopper before and the company will not allow me to fly in one (on the clock) for insurance reasons. But you can't stop me on my own time.

So Misty, Taylor and I flew over Terrebonne Parish for about an hour. Quite the learning (but the fun kind of learning) experience. I had always heard that we were surrounded by water, but I had no idea. It's crazy how much water is around the area I live.

So everybody, please cross your fingers that we don't get a direct hit by a hurricane. They'll be nothing left. (Rita put more water than ever in our parish, and it made landfall about 200 miles away.)

Anyway, you know I took some photos while flying over my town, so check them out here or here or here. (just click on the link... you can find it, I'm sure of it.) It's an audio slide show, so it might take some time to load.

But while it's loading, feel free to check out these shots of Taylor getting her first hair cut. She turns five in November and Misty thought it was time to chop off some of the mop. Mom thought she the new haircut made Taylor beautiful, I thought it was the combo of the new shirt AND the hair cut. :)

Wanna Popsicle?

Holy Moly...It must be my birthday.

I have no clue what I'm doing today. I've just been told to "not schedule anything after 4:00 p.m."

A few more thoughts about my vacation... On Thursday, Ben, Jessica and I went to the Royals vs Angles game at The K. KC won 9-4. We had prime foul ball seats. And if you didn't know, it's one of my life goals to catch a foul ball at a major league game. In the top of the 9th, with two outs, a dude popped a foul ball about a section away from us. I took off running. The ball landed and bounced a few rows above me, then found it's way into some punks hand a few rows below me. SO CLOSE. But at least I got to give the Royals' mascot, Sluggerrr, a high-five.

It was good to be back at a Royals game. Going to KC for a game has always been an "at least once a summer" type activity for me. And to see them win is like a cherry on top. I think I've seen the royals win 3 times in my life. I've seen the Royals give up 10 runs it the first inning (Same game I saw Don Mattingly hit a double), and I've seen KC give up 27 hits in 9 innings. (Carlos Penia went 6-6 and was a triple shy of the cycle). But it's always fun to watch live baseball.

That's it for this morning. I'm sure I'll let you know what happens to me tonight.

New Blog, Old Vacation

Well, if you're reading this, you've found your way to my new blog. I've decided to move away from MySpace and start posting on my own website. So bookmark it, and visit it often.

Anyway, I'm on the downside of my summer vacation. I went back to Kansas for a week to see some friends and help out at a High School Journalism Workshop at Kansas State.

It was great to see everybody and catch up on old times. One of our favorite "old times" that we used to do was eat taco bell lunch at the student union. (see photo) We used to eat Taco Bell at the Union darn near every day for three years in college. It's amazing we don't all weigh 400 lbs. But in this photo, Nabil (sitting on the left), Kelly (sitting on the right), Mike (standing left) and Nicole (with her baby Haven) and I enjoy a Union Lunch. These are all photogs I used to work with... well... Nabil was a writer, but hung around us enough that he became a default photog.

So that was cool.

Now I'm back home with two days off. (I had Monday off anyway, and Tuesday is my birthday) So it's nice to get back from vacation and be able to unwind a couple days before going back to work.