The Emmer Effing Fire Ants 2009 Edition

Ant Watch 2009: I was naive to think that by proactively treating my lawn for fire ants, I would lessen or eliminate the number of fire ant colonies in my yard this year. Right now, I have about 20 ant mounds, or 16 more than last month. In layman's terms, the number has increased %400 since treating with the same product that wiped them all out last year. Four of the mounds are near pavement, which means walking near the driveway is now an itchy hazard. I am wasting no more time. I bought another well known chemical...Orthene. Besides having hilarious radio commercials it is supposed to be an effective solution to my ant problem. The only problem is that I can't put anything on right now, because it is raining and will be raining for the next week. If I didn't have to worry about this entire problem, I would be 32% happier. Someday, I am going to create a patented (and probably dangerous) method of eliminating entire ant mounds instantly. I have quite a few ideas but most will require a written hazard disclaimer and probably a release waiver for people really serious about this. I'll let you know how that turns out.

I found some funny pictures recently and wanted to share. The first one is an ad campaign miscalculation. Audi taunted "Your move, BMW..."

This had me cracking up the other day. I know you remember this song.

Here's a friendly jab at the Harley folks. Also from BMW:

If you've ever used Real Player (like back in the early days of the Internet.) you'll get this....

If you've been reading Erin's vegan blog, you know she's been eating strawberries at a high rate. She loves loves loves them. Last week, she bought a gallon of them at a roadside stand. I kid you not, they are nearly gone now, and this picture was taken after half of them had been eaten. I still do not like strawberries.

Here's a picture of our Chorus, the Palmetto Statesmen, taken last Christmas at The Cliffs Valley.

Speaking of Cliffs, last week we had a performance at The Cliffs at Glassy.

Here's a shot from the back patio of the clubhouse. Beautiful! Mind you, this is on top of a mountain.

Here's Dr. Campbell, our director, warmin' us up.

And the steep drive down. This would have been really fun on my motorcycle. Maybe next year.

Erin, Dennis, and I tried a new restaurant last week: Lieu's Chinese Bistro. It is another "fancy" Chinese restaurant, located near P.F. Chang's.

I forgot to get interior pictures... It was more like a normal restaurant, like Arizona Steakhouse. For an appetizer, I ordered Crab Rangoons. They were huge and wonferful.

For my main dish, I had a spicy chicken dish. It was more like sweet and sour chicken than what I normally get. It was also good.

For dessert, Dennis and I split a (small) piece of cake. It was fantastic.

Overall, the food was very good and the price somewhat lower. I actually had food leftover! The waitress was a little spacey...She brought us the wrong appetizer and was very awkward whenever we talked to her....must have been new.


Erin talked me into singing with her choir for a couple Sundays and also playing in the bell choir for Pentecost Sunday. Look at all of those notes!!!

Actually, I am only responsible for a couple of the notes: E and F. It's just right for a newbie such as myself.

Erin and I finally got a new laptop! It's a pretty, shiny HP with....Windows Vista 64. This is my first Vista machine, and so far, it works just fine. Erin uses our old laptop daily in her classroom, so it was time for an upgrade. I bought the old one over 8 years ago. Not bad. The new one cost 1/3 as much as my old Dell and is more powerful than our regular PC. We love it! 6 hours runtime, Core 2 Duo, 250GB, 4GB Memory, etc.

I was at the video store the other day and snapped this picture. See if you can get this joke by clicking on the picture to enlarge. (Hint: There are no copies available)

For the last three weeks, I have been working to complete 30 PC installs. From start to finish, I image the pcs, transfer data and settings, install them for the user and then cascade or dispose of the old equipment. There are only two left to do by next week. It's been a lot of hard work, but a much-needed break from the daily grind.

Well, it has been a very busy month. I've been riding the motorcycle alot, finding some new favorite roads and going to the gym. Speaking of, I have lost a little bit of weight, and am starting to fit back into my clothes, which is my first priority. I have really been enjoying my time there and always look forward to going back. We are enjoying a nice long weekend with Erin's sister and hopefully make it to Carowinds this week, weather permitting. Can't wait. The weather has been cool, but rainy. I figure it will be hot and muggy within a few weeks... We've been seeing a lot of movies lately: Star Trek: Loved it! Angels & Demons: Liked it! Terminator Salvation: Hated it! This summer is producing a lot of theater worthy movies, and I have a feeling it's going to cost me a lot of money. Have a wonderful, safe Memorial Day!

When life gives you lemons...get a Frozen Mocha!

You thought I was going to say "make lemonade?" No, that's too much work. Plus I don't really care for lemonade. I would much rather enjoy a cold, chocolately frozen drink from my favorite place: Liquid Highway. Why do I need such a drink and what lemons are we speaking of? Well, I haven't told all ya'll yet, but about a month ago my team at work was told we would no longer have jobs at the City of Greenville after October 5th. I'll spare you all of the dramatic details, but it basically sucks that I moved down here specifically for this job and the contract was ended about 3 years premature. Oh well, life goes on...I feel I was brought here for a purpose and it will all work out! Maybe I'll find something new and exciting to do... my company will try its best to find me a different Greenville area site to work at, so I will be patient and remain with my employer. I've never worked at a more challenging, but interesting job in my entire life. It came at a high price though, and it may actually be healthier for me to work a different job... I'll keep ya'll posted.

On the topic of new and exciting, my wife started a second blog, due to popular demand. This time, she's talking about her adventure in veganism.

Please visit it, it's awesome and pretty funny. We all know she got that from me. http://veganpancake.blogspot.com

My BFF and I went to see Star Trek last week. OMG it's so awesome. I knew I'd like it, but I was really impressed by the actors, the visual effects, the script, the whole thing. Definitely recommend it, even for the ridiculous $10 ticket price or whatever they're stealing from me these days. Let's see: fight the crowds, listen to people narrate the movie while chomping on popcorn and opening 1,000,000 candy wrappers, paying $4.50 for a bottle of water just so I can see a movie on a giant digital tv screen? Maybe just this once...or once more for Transformers.

Erin and I met for lunch Friday and she wanted to try a froo-froo little cafe downtown. I said, sure, what the heck. I'm made of money.

Here she is....isn't she cute?


My sandwich and chips were actually very good. Worth $10? Maybe not, but I would go back if she twisted my arm.


I saw a bumper sticker that made me think of my mom. There's an organization selling bumper stickers, shirts, etc to support the fight against breast cancer. The slogan? "Save the ta-tas". Classic. http://www.savethetatas.com/catalog_hers.htm


For an extra special dinner on Friday, Erin and I tried P.F. Chang's China Bistro. Once I saw the horse standing out front, I knew this would be quite blog-worthy. I took this picture during our 60 minute wait.

P.F. Chang's is kinda hoity-toity to me, but I have no culture whatsoever. I just heard it was good and I see the place all the time and have never tried it.

The interior was beautiful and packed, even at 9:00 PM. They had popular music playing in the background and the waitstaff were very friendly.

I ordered some fancy crab rangoons, they were good, but different. Not much cream cheese, but plenty of crab.

I ordered the spicy chicken, because I am boring and wanted something similar to General Tso's chicken. This cost me $13 and was probably half of what I would get from a typical Chinese restaurant. Don't get me wrong, it was very very good, but not nearly enough to take some home to enjoy.

I ordered the Great Wall of Chocolate to split between me and myself. Actually, I only planned to eat half and take the rest home. It was terrific. And it was huge.

This was the only leftover food I was able to take home. Yummy!! Chinese chocolate cake.

The verdict? Well, since you love reading about my food reviews and you respect my opinion, I'll give it to you straight. I will not be returning. The place was crowded. It was pretentious. It was expensive. After tip, the meal cost $57 (without drinks). Yeah, yeah, we had appetizers, and I had a piece of cake, but still. The food was good, the waitress was good (although very busy and not very attentive), but there was nothing there to bring me back, especially when we can walk out of Chin Chin, which is also a nice restaurant, for half of that price with plenty of food leftover. Next time, we'll try Lieu's Bistro, which is a nearby similar Chinese restaurant.

Please check out Erin's vegan blog and see what she's been up to. I'm going to be looking for friend candidates since my BSG buddy is moving to NYC (which should be blog worthy in its own right) so if you know of any guys (sorry ladies) that enjoy watching Battlestar Galactica and grabbing junk food on a Friday night, please let me know. I'm staying busy with the gym, the motorcycle, and yardwork. All of those fire ants that I wiped out last year? Well, they're back and so far, resistant to my eradication techniques. I think I will start trying some other methods involving boiling water and such....should be interesting. Have a great evening (Happy Mother's Day!) Talk to you soon. Go see Star Trek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!