Tis the season for some bloggin'!

Well, Christmas greetings and seasons tiding and holiday wishes and all that to all ya'll out there. We're quickly approaching the best holiday of the year, Christmas! Welcome to a special edition of Lost in Greenville. Since every edition is special, just saying it means nothing. In fact, it's free, so there's your gift. Merry Christmas. The tree has only been up in our household for a week or so and it's the only decoration. I don't have time or energy to mess with that stuff this year, especially since we'll have to redesign our lights and other docarations to suit the new house. Any other year, I am more than happy to put it all up and bask in the warm glow of pretty lights and candles. With our jobs being so crazy lately, and the fact that we're travelling at Christmas, we didn't see a good reason to worry about all of it. And the best part is that there's less to take down and the even bestest part is that we have a nice attic in which to store it all this year.

Erin and I went to my company Christmas party last weekend and had a great time. It was at the Marriott and FREE so of course I went!

Here's my bride. She looked fantastic.


There was a portable dancefloor complete with the annoying dj that makes you do things you don't want to do. The music was pretty good, but I'm not much of a dancer. Neither was Dennis, so we sat and played with our phones instead of dancing. He just got the G1 so it was worth it!


The food was out of this world. The ONLY thing I didn't like was that the filet was way undercooked and I actually had to kill the cow myself due to the annoying mooing sounds. Plus I got free Corona Light FTW.

Just when I thought I was full, they brought out the chocolate fudge cake. Oh man, it was the best slice I ever had.

I recently sang at a swanky mountain golf club/development up north of Traveller's Rest. It's called Cliffs Valley, because (wait for it) it's in a valley. There's another Cliffs development nearby that's on top of the mountain, but this is for the poorer rich folks who can only afford a valley. They mostly play golf all day. Not my bag.

The first thing I saw when I got there was this gorgeous gingerbread house. Every part of that is edible. (I hope they don't miss the part I ate. Can you tell from this picture which one that was?)

Okay, good. Just kidding. That thing is probably worth more than my actual real non-candy house and probably built better, too. Here's the outside of the clubhouse:

You can see a few houses on the hills there.

It's one of those places that you want to come back to. Take the gigantic men's bathroom for example. Those tissues there, for instance, are made from recycled $100 bills.

Here's me in my chorus getup. I've only worn that tuxedo like twice in the last 7 years. It barely fits and it's the only double breasted jacket in the entire chorus, but I don't care. I'm not buying a new one while I have one that works fine!

The crowd was a polite bunch, mostly in their fifties, sipping on wine and enjoying the music from us commoners (one of our group actually lives there). The women all jumped straight out of a Coldwater Creek catalog. The only kids present were the staffmembers. They wouldn't even let us eat the food. It was froo-froo stuff, so I'm not terribly upset. I'll go to Dunkin' instead and get a coolata and sour cream donut. mmmmmmmmmmmm The coolata is tempting, but don't do it. You can take more than one sip per half hour to a severe brain freeze probability. The donut, you can eat as fast as you want. FACT:* The faster you eat it, the less goes to your hips.

*not really

Erin and I went to "The Bee" in honor of our friend Dennis. He likes to wait tables on weekends and the food sounded yummy, so we went. He works at the one out in Greenville. We didn't go to that one. I see him enough already.

I was really impressed with the trio platter. I added fries, but who wouldn't? The hot chicken (barely spicy) shrimp, mini cheeseburgers, fries were all excellent. We have a gift card now, so we're going back tonight.

One of the reasons I have been so busy lately is that I'm working on a big project at the city, where we're converting all of the users and computers to a Windows domain and Microsoft Outlook. Screw Novell Groupwise (Poopwise). The first few weeks were rocky, due to 20 hour days and some other issues, but we are back on track, and I am on a team dedicated to the project alone. I'm even working a later shift, so I can sleep in and still not get my excercise. (but skip a lunch and dinner break) We sit at each computer and do 1-2 hours worth of work. Sometimes I get lucky and can do two from one seat or convert them on my computer via remote desktop.

On one extremely late night of work, Dennis and I went to Steak 'n Shake. Just for your information, this is what a steakburger platter and malt look like when it's 2:00 in the morning and you're the only customer in the restaurant. Ever hear the commercial? "Steak 'n Shake tsssssssssss Famous for steakburgers, but evidently not in South Carolina, since there's literally only one in the entire state."

Hope you enjoyed our adventure. Next time, I will probably have some pictures of Christmas and our trip up to Peoria. If you didn't know we were coming, consider this your warning. Oh, and another warning: If you're going to go see The Day the Earth Stood Still, wait and watch it on DVD. It's not bad, just not worth the $10 ticket. You're welcome.

Gobble Gobble Gobble

Welcome to our Thanksgiving extravaganza: A smorgasbord of food and pictures from our big weekend. Erin's mom and grandparents made the journey from central Illinois to spend a few days with us, so now, we've seen most of our family from the Heart of Illinois. Let's meet the stars of adventure. Here we have Erin's Mom, Grandma, and Blinky McBlink, herself.

This is Erin's Grandpa. This was a special trip for them as well, because her grandparents lived in Greenville about 50 years ago, when he was stationed at Donaldson Air Force Base. Things must have changed considerably, because everything was quite different.

And our final star of the show is Dennis, but he does not like to be photographed. You have to be sneaky with him, because if you ask for a picture, this is what you receive:

On Thanksgiving day, Erin and I made a non-traditional, yet traditional, dinner, including: Turkey burgers, Sweet Potato fries (With marshmallow), corn, cranberry cocktails and pumpkin muffins. In other words, it had all of the important elements. It was awesome!!

For entertainment, Dennis brought his Wii. We played bowling, golf, tennis...the whole lot.

The next day, we had a really traditional meal. Erin cooked all of it from scratch. I made myself useful by walking to get donuts for breakfast!

It, too, was awesome. Feel free to come over and help yourself to some leftovers.

After dinner, we took the folks downtown to Greenville. Here's Erin taking a short break.

Downtown was crowded, due to the Festival of Trees that was going on. Falls Park was no exception. The river was still pretty low, but I was impressed with how well my new phone pics came out.

We even saw a snow machine at Piazza Bergamo.

A quick trip inside Mast General store made us feel all cozy inside. (It was 65 and sunny, but hey, it's Christmastime!)

I needed a pickmeup, so we went to Liquid Highway for a coffee treat. I forgot how big these things were. Next time, I'll get the smaller size, I swear!

There was a band and singalongs. Then a big countdown to light up downtown Greenville.

5! 4! 3! 2! 1! ......."that was it?" Most of Main Street is lit up year round, so the few strands they turned on wasn't quite was I was expecting.

Inside the Hyatt, there are dozens of trees setup with different sponsors' ornaments.

On their last day here, we all went out for breakfast. We decided to try a place near our house.

It was a cafeteria style restaurant, with tons of things on the menu.

Here we are, waiting for our food.

I asked for milk, not the cream off the top! Oh well, someone has to drink this whole milk. Ugh.

Here's my breakfast, it was yummy good. It's no Waffle House, but at least there was a lot more seating.

I hope everyone had a great Turkey Day! We ate enough for sure. The house is quiet once again, and we are in no hurry to get the Christmas decorations up (man, am I a grinch or what?!). I'm afraid I won't be home much to enjoy them anyway. In a little over 3 weeks, we'll be driving back to Illinoise to see everyone for Christmas. Can't wait!

My dreams have come true. Pinch me.

HAPPY DAY! GUESS WHAT I GOT!! I'll give you a hint... (It rhymes with "Eye Foam"). I have in my hands the most bestest gadget in the world...an iPhone!!

Geek fodder

I had been dreaming of this day since I saw the demonstration on Youtube in early 2007. My best friends know that I have been whining about getting one of these forever and some thought I'd never actually do it. Well, "ha", good sir. Match, set, and point.

If you're not familiar with the iPhone, it's basically a small touch screen phone that features Internet access, music, photos/videos, and runs programs that seems to do all sorts of things. It's not cheap, but the new 3G model included a big price cut, which finally made it attractive to normal working class folks like us.

Demon Spawn

If you know me well, you know that I have despised my last phone (White LG Chocolate) almost since the day I bought it, but I hung in there, because my 2 year contract was renewed and Verizon didn't have many phones that were better. For Christmas this year, Erin and I bought eachother the phones and made the switch to AT&T (not without some trepidation, of course, since we have been happy Verizon customers for 10 years). In case you're wondering, Christmas came early for us this year because you can't walk out of the store without signing up for service and we were very concerned about the phones becoming sold out near Christmas. Plus, we needed to get 864 area code numbers soon because Erin was getting alot of calls about her jobs.

What I hated so much about my old phone, were things like: It took 4 or 5 button presses to get the phone unlocked, turn the volume up, find the music player. The controls were so sensitive, that I would constantly make accidental phone calls when I was just trying to change settings. Sometimes, I would press the buttons, but they wouldn't respond immediately and the phone would go crazy and start moving up and down the screen forever. It was an ok camera phone, but loading songs and pictures from the memory card took an eon. Everything about it was slow and clunky. It did nothing well. To make matters worse, people unfamiliar with current phones would ask me "Is that an iPhone?" Ouch! "No," I'd say, "I wish it was..." The best things about it was that is was very small and simple to flip on and off with its slidiness. It was a reliable phone and had good battery life. RIP Chocolate, Jan 2007-November 2008.

I waited patiently for Verizon to come out with a comparable snazzy phone, and they came close with a few zingers, including the newest Blackberry Storm. The main problem with VZW phones is that their data plans are way more expensive and and phones often don't have WiFi functionality. And we told them all that when we politely canceled out service.


Erin and I have spent a lot of time on our phones, loading up applications, surfing the web, and imprting music, photos, and contacts.


Here's the first picture I took from my phone:

The salesperson's name was Ashley and if you are shopping for an AT&T phone in the Greenville area, please visit her. She was tremendously helpful and even stayed 30 minutes late on a Saturday night to help us get setup with our sponatenous and exciting purchase. As you can see from the picture, you can expect awesome blog photos from this point forward!

So far, I have found almost nothing I don't like about the phone or the service. (Lack of video recording, MMS, and cut & paste.) The service strength is great in our area and the 3G service is awesome. If you are even thinking about picking one up, do it now, because you will instantly regret not having it earlier. :) If anyone is interested in a VZW Moto RAZR V3M or White LG Chocolate (Lord have mercy on your soul) please let me know and I will make you a deal, because probably, everyone else I know has a Verizon phone.....

If you think I have become some sort of Apple Phanboi....maybe.

'Blue-stater' out of his element

Well, I've been waiting for this day for 4 years! Election day! We were so excited down here to vote, but were a little worried about the high voter turnout (and high Republican turnout) but we lifted our chin up and braved the crowds. It really wasn't that bad, but thought ya'll might like to see my voting experience was like!

I got up bright and early on Tuesday. The polls opened at 7:00, and I got there right at 7:00. Our precinct was just around the corner from our neighborhood (Erin walked) but it was on my drive to work. I walked over the hill to see the line. Uh-oh.

Ok, now I'm in line. It seems to be moving pretty quickly, though. I worked on my email while I waited.

There was a nice booth with some warm beverages and such to help. I waited until I reached the tent in line, though, because I felt awkward leaving the line and coming back.

Finally I reached the building an hour later. Wait, does the line snake around inside the building?? Well, shoot.

Yep, but at least it was warm!

Finally! I got to use a fancy electronic voting machine for the first time. Even though I can find my way around electronic devices in the dark, I did ask for a little help just to make sure my vote was counted. Even though my vote didn't technically "count", I did my part to make my voice heard. The count in SC was closer than I expected (like 52% Mccain to 47% Obama or something) but in the end my candidate won, by a large margin. That was so exciting to watch. We truly believe that Barack was the better choice, for a fresh new face with a good head on his shoulders. Now, I just have to keep clear of all the Limbaugh listeners down here that are still trying to blame all of our problems on Bill Clinton and Barack Obama!

My boss took our Greenville team out for dinner to celebrate meetng our quarterly contract obligations. I suggested Smoke on the Water, which is a local fancy barbeque place.

The inside was beautiful, of course, restored from an old building in the West End.

Look at those cute little shakers!

They had a nice selection of BQ sauces. They were all very runny, though, so I can't say that I liked them. (I mean, I can technically speak "that I liked them" but I would be lying)

Free cornbread. More please!

I had a chicken sandwich. It was pretty good. Not really worth $13, but it was okay.

The dessert was awesome, though. I had chocolate mousse pie. OMG it was so good. I made myself sick though, I couldn't even finish it!

We have a new ATS site at the Fountain Inn CAT engine plant. Even though I haven't done the job for over two years, they asked me to train the new guy on the deployment processes. The plant is less than 10 minutes from my house (I don't even have to get on the expressway!) so I was happy to work so close to home. To be truthful, I once really wanted this job, but I'm glad I took the job at CoG instead. The area that Mike will be working in is very noisy dirty, smelly, and slippery. I'll take my clean, quiet, city hall anyday!

Erin and I attended a fall festival at Messiah Lutheran. It was mostly for kids and families, but we wanted to show ourselves and meet some new faces. The sign on the door says it all!

There was a balloon guy making balloon animals (I was too shy to get one made). There were also other games and a live praise band.

Here is an example of a balloon animal. It's a bumblebee!

The best part of the night was the food. It was BBQ pulled pork and other dishes. (We brought Erin's famous pasta salad in the lower right hand corner of my plate.

I stumbled upon a secret treasure the other day....another Shell Station! This one is just a couple blocks north of the police station. I never had driven up that far, so I never saw it before. I am so excited! It is tons closer than the one I normally use in the 'hood.

Not only is the station cleaner and more convenient, it actually prints receipts when you ask it to. Now, I'm a happy guy.

It's been a beautiful fall so far, with warm temperatures and bold colors. Erin and I went to the mountains a couple weeks ago, so I will try and post some of the more interesting pictures. Maybe next year, I'll take a nice long motorcycle ride up there (I can only hope!). Erin has been super busy with her new job at Messiah, but she is really enjoying. I have been busy also, with a lot of projects and things to fix at my job. Hope the month of November is treating ya'll well, and to all of you GOP folks, sorry about Tuesday. Peace!