It isn’t written in stone yet or anything, so I can’t go into detail about it,  and I have been specifically told not to get excited, but I can be completely vague by giving some strange countdown until the event in question occurs or doesn’t.  Hehe.

T-minus 13 months!

In other news, life is pretty normal.  Phil and I have been looking for houses, made a couple offers, but still haven’t found the house that truly speaks to us.  If we made more money or won the lottery, which of course we would need to play in order to win, there are plenty of houses out there that would be glad to have full fledged conversations with us.  Perhaps one of these days we will find what we’re looking for.  Did you just hear that song in your head, too? 

The furbutts(Sugar Gliders) are doing fine.  Quantum is as sweet as pie and has bonded to us, but his girlfriend, Countess, is a complete whore bag.  She is always trying to bite us and run into places she isn’t supposed to go, ie the stove.  I will give her some credit though.  She has gotten a little better than when we first got her.  I’m hoping that in time that she becomes more like Quantum, but I’m not going to hold my breath or anything.

Work is work.  I’m now in the Benefits Office if I haven’t mentioned it already.  I was moved out of the Employment Office due to budget cuts and lack of work. I’m just glad I still have a job.  It is going to take some time to learn everything, but I guess that is how all new jobs are.

Our garden attempt this year has more or less failed.  We still have some plants in the spare bedroom, but I have a feeling we are never going to get around to planting them outside.  If we do, it will be too late and they will never produce anything worth eating.  Oh, well.  There is always next year.

Speaking of next year, the Braves are sorta sucking it up.  I know it isn’t even the second half of the season yet, and that anything can happen, but if they continue to play the way that they are (of course, they would blank out the NY Yankees as I write this), then I don’t expect an extended October.

Okay, well, I promised I would blog again one day, so here it is.  I’ll start looking for old videos and pictures, as well as trying to write more about my present life.  I used to have time to blog more, so I know the time exists.  I guess I just have to try harder.

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I wish there were more things to take pictures of at a baseball game. The Braves have tried to make the stadium interactive, but it’s more so for the kids than anything. And don’t you dare say, “That’s what the beer is for, Gabe!” For some reason, my German blood disagrees with it.

The one thing I noticed as we sat in bumper to bumper traffic for what must have been an hour or so after the game, was how run down the area is around the stadium. I was pretty shocked. I can’t count the number of buildings I saw marked by spray paint. Several buildings were boarded up and looked like they hadn’t been occupied in many years. I know Atlanta isn’t the best city in the world, but I guess I just expected it to look more sophisticated than it did. Those few blocks looked down right slummy. This is not to say that the people living in those areas are bad people. I just wish they cared more about the appearance of their neighborhood. I’m sure it’s been like that for many years and that I’ve seen it before, but I only truly noticed it this time around because we were going so slow.

I wonder if other MLB stadiums are in similar areas? If so, I wonder why.

And now for a few pictures.

You wouldn’t know it from this picture, but I was sitting very close to the left field foul poll when I snapped this.

I was very disappointed in the firework show at Turner Field. It may partially be because of my firework experience in China, but I really felt it lacked the “WOW” factor.

As the fireworks were going off, some guy next to me told his buddy that now would be a good time to shoot someone.

I had a friend who once taped a roach to some sort of firework. He wanted to to see if it would survive the blast. I was very surprised to find the roach alive and well after the pretty show.

Looks sorta like the sky is reigning down some serious lighting.

And here is a video of the less than spectacular firework display put on at Turner Field in Atlanta, Georgia.

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My trip to Atlanta was a good one. Everything went pretty much as planned.  We had good weather despite the threat of showers pretty much all weekend.  It rained once for about 20 minutes right before we went to Stone Mountain, but then the skies cleared up.  An hour later, you never would have known that it had rained. The temperatures were even reasonable for July.  Well, at least for me.  Sometimes I think 100 degrees is cold.  Yeah, I’m crazy, I know.

The only slight downside of our entire trip was the Econo Lodge we stayed at for two nights.  It wasn’t anything fancy, but I didn’t expect it to be, so I wasn’t disappointed that our room felt like a shoe box and looked 30 years old.  Yeah, I know, I’m livin’ large.  Next time though, Phil and I are going to upgrade our hotel and stay at one that is right by the stadium so we don’t have to deal with the rotten traffic after the game.  I think the extra 50 or so bucks a night that we’ll spend will be worth it.

The best thing all weekend besides watching the Braves beat the Astros was finding thinly sliced lamb at the Super H Mart.  It’s an Asian grocery store that Phil and I go to everytime we go to Atlanta.  We never thought we would ever find lamb like that in America after we left China, so you can imagine our surprise.  I think we may have done a dance of joy.    It was fairly priced, too – $5.99 a pound.  We were so excited about our find that we bought about 6 meals worth and put it in a cooler to take home with us.

Okay, and now some pictures.

Odd picture, I know, but I really like it.  I think it would look really good in black and white for some reason.

Driving 75 mph made it a bit difficult to snap this picture.  The first one I took was even worse, though.  That one had a big, stupid speed limit sign smack dab in the center of the shot.

There was nothing else to take a picture of at the rest stop, so I figured I would make use of my macro setting.

I think they call this character Homer or something like that.  I’ve never walked on stilts.  I imagine that I would fall flat on my face if I tried.  I mean, I can barely walk down the hall in my bare feet without banging into the wall or door frame.  I’m such a klutz.

Hey, check it out, Bloo is an Atlanta Braves fan! Sweet!

I must say, this is the biggest American flag I have ever seen.  I wonder how many shirts you could make out of it?

I thought this was pretty funny.  The Astros were portrayed as British soldiers.  I guess they were doing this because it was 4th of July.

And here is Chipper Jones defending his country with his bat.

Here we have the Chic-fil-a cow doing the chop.  How cute.

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