Holy Schnike....we're out of gas!

Due to some bad storms in the SE area (something called a hurricane) and some unnecessary panic, there is no gas in my town tonight. Good thing Erin and I have plenty of gas in our cars! (and good thing we can walk to Moe's)

Ya know what will make everyone feel better? Chocolate cake with multiple layers of chocolate fudge icing. (from Publix) I had a little tiny piece Thursday morning (it's always 5:00 somewhere) and man it was a little too much. And that, my friends, is a lot coming from me.

You know what else will help? Playing with Dennis's new ipod touch. It's like iPhone Light. He's been liking the iTunes Remote Control feature. I like how thin it was. The screen is glass, so I had an easy time wiping off my drool.
Do you know what?? The Quizno's in downtown Greenville has meatball subs! The Quizno's in Ellinoise stopped making those in 2007. They only make 'em on white bread, and I like mine on subrolls. Oh well, I'm not going to complain.


I know we had Bellacino's back in Peoria, but I had never been there. At work, we've been eating a lot of pizza from this Slice of Heaven and I am now hooked. Luckily, there is another location right by our house.

Mmmmm Parmasean Sticks. When I asked the cashier if they were like breadsticks, she twirled her hair and said "uhhhhh.....no.....they are made with pizza crust....?" and looked at me like I was from Mars. Not Mars, just Ellinoise. Josh: 1, Simpsonville Schools: 0

99.99% as good as Godfather's. ALMOST but the closest yet. When you come and visit us, this is what you have to look forward to.

We hung some new art on our brown wall.

To add art and decorations to our house without spending much money, Erin started creating art in our garage today. You can see her first work of art at the bottom of the screen. I see cinnamon rolls. Mmmmm Cinnabon...I haven't had one of those in years! Ok, back on topic.

At work, we lost some office space as part of a new training room project. This new room used to be two offices. Here is a semi final product:
A couple weeks ago, our quartet sang at a local junior high. We got the opportunity to sing for some 6th and 7th graders. Also, we had the opportunity to teach them about Barbershop singing and how you can be really cool while doing it. OK, seriously though, many of those kids are under the impression that they cannot continue to be involved in music without committing their lives to it.

Finally, I got a new phone at work. They call these things Crackberries for a reason. (They have nothing to do with poo) They are addictive as H-E-hockeystick-hockeystick. My old Sprint Treo never had reception and was slow and awkward. This new magical thing keeps 100% battery all day, always has multiple Verizon bars and I can do everything much faster. I love it! It's a shame that I am dumping Verizon because most of their consumer phones suck ass and I'm getting an iPhone. (I would SO get a Google Android phone if T-Mobile and Sprint didn't suck so much too)

At the Friday Morning Meeting at the ATS SE office, we had the opportunity to participate in a demonstration aimed towards kids. We made an assembly line of tinkertoys and I was a "technician" who fixed problems to avoid downtime.

This was our final product. We should be very proud of our new product. Too bad the whole project was for waste, cause everything is going to be made in China anyway, so the kids won't even have job opportunities, but it is a nice distraction in their otherwise boring day of not caring about learning. End rant.

Erin and I have been furniture shopping lately, and ran across this funny contradiction. Can you spot it? Hint: The store employees have been naughty.

Erin and were walking up Main street in GVegas and spotted Herby the Love Bug driving North.
Right now, I'm blogging, watching the Pres. Debate online, and feeling guilty about the Venti Mocha Frap I just downed. It costs more than I spend on an entire meal at the Golden Arches. (and it leaves my breath smelling like poo) I need to brush my teeth. Peace.

30 Days Hath September

Hey ya'll, I'm here. Sorry I'm late. I hit some traffic on 385, but I made it! The weekend has been pretty uneventful. We have most of the guest bedroom painted (pictures to come) and enjoyed a nice dinner at Moe's yesterday (steak burrito...mmmm). I did have to spend some time at work this morning, but it was brief. Erin and I walked to Home Depot today and by the time we got home, I was beat. So, I am procrastinating the house cleanin' by blogging. You should try it sometime, it's very theraputic.

***

We'll begin our journey with an updated photo from the hotel construction from next door to City Hall. Can you believe that this thing went up in one week?

Now, look at this photo. It is INDOORS. It's a frackin' hotel! The Hyatt, to be precise. I had to replace a printer for the city's parking garage computer. And they're very polite, too. So, next time I want to stay in a nice hotel in Greenville, and I have $200 to blow, I will have a tough decision to make between the Poinsett and Hyatt. Decisions, decisions.

Now, how about this? I recently celebrated my 5th anniversary with ATS and I came home to find a box with a new Bulova watch with my name engraved on the back. Not bad....now if I only wore a watch.

Try this out for size, one of our famous Italian Beef sandwiches. Heck yes.

I've been craving bonesless wings (and grieving the lack of a local B-Dubs) so Erin and I tried the WingZone in Mauldin. It is a wing delivery place, which happens to have a couple chairs for those with no friends or parties to go to. We pulled up a table and ordered in. I had some super hot wings and Erin had a chicken sandwich.

Both meals were incredibally good. In fact, I completely forgot to take a picture. So, here is the empty tray after I finished my plate.

I was luckly enough to meet some presidential candidates at the mall. I asked them to sit with us and chat, but they declined. They's probably just get their words mixed up and take everything the wrong way anyway.

I didn't have the heart to tell them that I wasn't selecting them on my ballot in November. There's only one candidate that can truly improve my life and that man is Jimmy John.

Less than a month until my Parents come to visit! We are so excited!!! Then a few weeks later, Erin's family starts to show up in droves. We'll be ready for all ya'll. Speaking of driving, did you know that SC leads the country in low gas prices most of the year and then leads the country in price gouging whenever a Hurricane hits the area? Yippee! It only jumped up $1 overnight. No big deal. On a different note, Erin and I got the opportunity to hang out with people our age (young adults, thank you very much). We had a great dinner party with some folks from our church. It felt good to socialize and not feel so lame. They'll probably never invite us again, but we can say we did it once. Have a great week everyone!

Some quick thoughts...

So, now that I've been in SC for over 6 months, I thought I'd post a few of my observations. To any locals that may accidentally be reading my blog, I apologize. I mean no offense. Just observing, coming from the Midwest!

Boy, they love their football. The first two questions you're faced with when you move to sc..."Where do you go to church?" Luckily, I have an answer for that one! "Are you a Clemson or USC fan?" I usually just pick a side and make fun of the other to see who I can make mad, cause I just don't really care.

Then, the third most asked question is "where are you from?" I answer "Peoria, Illinois" Which is invariably followed by "Illinoise, huh? Oh, I knew someone from Iowa once! Did you know him /her?"

Another thing that I've noticed is that no one can spell worth a darn! You notice a word here and there, even in a professional environment. Entrants instead of entrance, for example, and apostrophes are everywhere! They treat them as little footballs. If there is more than one of something, it has an apostrophe. Those thing's get annoying. There should be an apostrophe tax.

On a completely different topic, I got the funniest responses ever to my request for some time off one afternoon. I sent an email to Dennis: "May I please take a late, long lunch on Monday the 8th? My quartet is going to perform for some sweet kids at a local grade school. It will take 2-3 hours and will change their lives forever." His immediate response: "Tell them to get a job. Nobody cares." Wow. Now you know what I have to put up with everyday.

I got the funniest quote from John, the baritone in our quartet. We were practicing one night and I heard him say: "You can have a good time as long as you have a good time in the right key." How true, how true. Words to live by.

In Soviet Russia, Great Weekend have YOU!

Welcome to part B of our Super-Sized Labor Day Extravaganza! (I had too many interesting things to talk about to include on one blog posting..I didn't want to blow your mind) We started our awesome long weekend by visiting Trio, a downtown Italian grill.

The interior was beautiful....lots of wood and art.

We had a nice view of Main Street from our table.

Here's Erin, looking all great like usual.

I ordered a Broccoli and Chicken Calzone. It was pretty good and a step away from my typical desire for a more pizza-y calzone.

Afterward, Erin stopped by her favorite fancy froofroo tea place down by the river.

I guess it's fancy because they put little balls of tapioca in the tea. (really? W)

I was intrigued, however, by the fancy little cup lid putter-onner that they have. It actually creates a water tight seal on the top of the cup.

For a little while, we sat at Falls Park and talked about this old tree. Did it grow out of the rock...how long has it been there, etc?

Here's a crappy picture of Falls Park from below.

My quartet, Three Day Weekend, had our first public performance on an informal Friday Night stage at the park. We sang about 4 songs and it went pretty well! This was another group singing before us.

Well, it's the weekend, and we all know what that means. More painting! This time, we got out the big guns. 5 Gallons, baby. We're going to do the living and we'll need lots of paint.

Here's Erin doin' her thang trimming the ceiling. (I prefer to roll...it's like mowing a lawn. Does that sound weird?)

Heres one view of the livingroom all done.

Here's all of our colors together at long last.

We bought a few new light fixtures for the house (the OEM components were awful). Here's our new foyer light.

Here's our new laundry/hallway light.

And finally...drumroll......the new dining room chandelier! This one was a tough one....it had to be silver and white, contemporary and not too expensive. We're very happy with out choice. And it's the second thing I've bought from Home Depot that I will not be returning.

Remember that patio furniture debacle from a couple weeks ago? I freecycled the old furniture and set up the new stuff. What a difference. We are so much more likely to sit outside now.

Thanks for hanging out with me on this Labor Day! Hope all ya'll have a great and safe Holiday. "I'll be back soon." You can quote me on that.

Get back to work!

In the first of our two part Labor Day extravaganza: Some court-permissable evidence that I'm not always actually "working" at work. In this particular instance, Dennis mugged our boss for some ice cream money Can you believe it actually worked? Dennis didn't want to be incriminated, so he was trying to protect his identity. Sorry, dude, the Big Yellow's out of the bag! (we're not allowed to say "Cat" at work anymore)

At Spill the Beans (the ice cream place on the west end), they have these giant drills that mix together the ingredients. Do you remember the giant drill Dr. Evil used? Kinda reminds me of that.

This picture made me chuckle. Do you really think that boy is thinking about ice cream?

Here's mine. I should have specified that I did not wish my brownies to be mixed into a fine powder by the giant drill, but it tasted good anyway.

By the time I got back to my desk, it was all gone.

This is my sad face after running out of ice cream.
Thought you might like a construction update from the hotel next door. They erected a crane. *insert Beavis and Butthead laugh here*

They actually have a big portion of the foundation done now!

This made me chuckle...read the title of the article and note the invading yellow home sticker.

Stay tuned for an all-new, super-sized Lost in Greenville Labor Day special. Right after these messages! (no messages, just give me a few minutes to type and upload pictures)