A big smile

Amy with a big smile while shopping in Columbia, SC on Christmas eve in balmy conditions. One could say that the weather was almost too nice, but complaining about 70 degree temperatures sounds silly.

Chuck's World

Chuck Herin is the inventor of pegheds and he bought a very cool school building he is currently restoring and making it into his home and peghed factory.

Chuck with the main school building closest to him and the auditorium to the left



The old blackboards work out great for Chuck to scribble down some thoughts



Some of Chuck's Pegheds



No doubt about what is being worked on here



The former gym houses some of the manufacturing plus some of his car projects



Inside the auditorium where we might see some concerts before too long

Fly with me

Maybe not.


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

A Christmas party in Columbia, SC

We have been in Columbia, SC the last few days to visit family and attended a couple Christmas parties. The first one was hosted by Amy's dad Ron and his wife Amy and people travel far and wide for this party and the delicious pork tenderloin. Unfortunately I have no pictures of that event.
The day after Virginia hosted a party at her house and it appeared that Amy and I were the only non musical folks there. Everybody played an instrument and/or sang and the whole evening was quite a musical affair. Here are a few images.

This actually wasn't the only jam session that happened in Virginia's house



Grandmama Georgia is listening intently



Amy and her dad Ron surrounded by instruments



Ron's wife Amy did not play until later that night. Amy is actually a great violinist who played at our wedding with her brother Chuck and her friend Virginia



Amy's brother Chuck is a creative genius and he plays the Cello.

The 100 / 100 challenge

I recently signed up for the 100 runs in 100 days challenge on slowtwitch.com that started on December 15th and so far I have managed 6 runs in 4 days. That means I currently have 2 runs in the bank for possible sick days, travel days, holidays or plain old lazy days. We'll see how long the motivation lasts.

The pics below are taken on a loop that I run most often.

Ready for Christmas

Our condo in the Piedmont Leaf Lofts is decorated and we are ready for Christmas. It'll be our one and only Christmas in this place, and most likely the last time we can decorate our home like this. Unless we of course have exposed pipes in a future home that will allow us to hang ornaments. :-)

The new home?

Many folks have asked us about the new green home that we wanted to build here in downtown Winston-Salem as part of the SECCA on Second Street project. The longer we were waiting for things to move along and for good communication from the developer, the more we started to get a bad feeling about it. Along those lines, it is one thing to have a bad vibe about a pair of jeans you are buying, but that should not happen when buying a home no matter how expensive it is. So we decided to walk away from that project a few months ago and started to look at other options. We found a few cool older homes we liked, but Amy and I both were especially smitten by a home in the West End area.

So this might be our new home by mid January.

The front of the house



Cute little front porch area



The living room



Another view of the living room



The den is very cozy



The previous home owner put a lot of work into the kitchen



Did we already say that we love the kitchen?



One of the bath rooms



There is deck out of the back

A weekend in Chattanooga

Last weekend I traveled to Chattanooga to close on the house on Missionary Ridge, but the buyer was missing some paperwork and the whole thing got delayed. I still went anyway as Amy was getting ready for her boards in Nashville and I was going to be home alone in Winston Salem either way. I got there Thursday night and stayed with Anita and Paul and their 4 "kids" Belle, Brodie, little girl and Pete. On Friday I got some work done and the time originally scheduled for the closing was now open and I went to see Jill's "adventures on a pony." I had not seen Martin, Janelle and their kids since mid July and it was amazing to see how much the girls have grown. Friday night Anita, Paul and I met up with Rick and Mary Loggins, Pat and Kleehammer, Mike Madzin, Susan Mietling and a few other folks at Big River Grille downtown and it was nice seeing everybody. Saturday Morning Paul, Anita, Belle and I ran the Big Daddy trail on the side of Lookout Mountain and Rick Loggins joined us for a bit early on, and George Hovanec ran the last section with us. That night we went to the black tie event at the Hunter Museum and with several hundred people gathered there, we had plenty of people to make fun off. Sunday after a nice breakfast at the Blue Plate and a short visit to Martin and Janelle I headed back to Winston Salem and managed to make it in 5:05. :-)


Mmmm ice cream. Life is good for Bex.




Jill is growing like a weed.




A visit to Chattanooga without a trip to Big River is hard to imagine




Anita is ready to run the infamous Big daddy trail run in Chattanooga




Rick ran with Paul and I for a while, but he is still nursing a back injury and couldn't join us for "all the fun."

10/9 Central rant

This little thing shouldn't bug me that much, but I just don't get why a TV show start time has to be announced with two time zones. Example 10/9 Central.

Is the TV watching audience not smart enough to understand that 10 Eastern means 9 Central? Why not say 10/9/8 Mountain or 10/9/8/7 Pacific?

Give them what they want

If you give people what they want, they may give you what you really want. Just don't expect it, or be disappointed if nothing comes back. Are you listening Eric?

Happy, happy

Today is Thanksgiving's Day and I am very thankful for my health, family and friends. I am mostly thankful though to have met the love of my life and to be happily married to her.

A run up Pilot Mountain

On Saturday I ran up Pilot Mountain with Treb, who was kind enough to introduce me to this very nice trail run. It was a bit too cold on the top to hang out and really enjoy the views but we still took in some some magnificent vistas in passing. :-)
Thanks Treb.

The famous Ironman crawl

The 1997 Ironman Hawaii finish gives me chills every time I see it. But I also know that many people have never seen this. Watch Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham in a display of unbelievable will and determination at the end of 140.6 miles of swimming, biking and running.

New anxiety medications

For Coping With Economic Gloom.

Debtrol

Downcyclen

Subprimacare

Lehmanax

Delinquedent

Panix

Nojoblin

Greedquil

Feariflu

Defaulta

Forclosen

Banxergon

Nuvopor

Catastrophex

For Peter Scallion's complete list click here

Piedmont Craftsmen

Amy and I went to the Piedmont Craftsmen's Fair today at the Benton Convention Center in downtown Winston-Sale. We noticed all kinds of interesting pieces of arts and crafts, but the most interesting projects came from a female "craftsman" named Cynthia Wynn.

Where we currently live

Thanks to the very nice street view of the google maps you can actually see quite clearly where we live in Winston-Salem, NC.

We are on the third floor of the Piedmont Leaf Lofts


A look up 4th street towards downtown


The map view of 401 East 4th Street (Piedmont Leaf Lofts)

Don't forget album covers

In this age of iPods and downloadable tunes you may forget what album covers used to looked like. bizzarrerecords.com makes sure that you at least won't forget the crazy ones. Organized neatly by category (see a sample of "duets" and "coordinated groups" below), this site is quite a hoot.

Oh my

I get to test the new Zero Gravity Gravitas brakes. Sweeeet.

Going digital

If you are getting ready for the digital conversion, you best study this very informational PSA closely. :-)

A snapshot in time

Here is a screen shot of the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) at 10pm Eastern. This is one of the biggest German news papers and it is all about the US election.

Homer Simpson votes

Homer Simpson may not be smart, but smart enough to understand that it is time for a change. Let's hope that the voting machines are not "too smart" though.

24 hours before...

... we can pretty much call Barack Obama the next president of the United States.

Happy Halloween

Or should I say Happy Pumpkin Day?

Yeah

Just heard that our friends Martin and Janelle had another baby girl. She was born at 2pm and weighs 7lbs 6oz and has black hair. A black haired little sister for these 2 blonde angels? :-)

That One

I'd love to vote for That One if I was eligible to vote, mostly of course to do my civil duty, but also to "cancel out the vote of some dumbass."

In a recent conversation with a staunch Republican voter I actually heard that idea spun in a different way. The guy complained to me that he voted early and was in line behind some young black guy wearing a baseball cap sideways. That immediately made him realize that "That One" would cancel out his vote and that it wasn't fair that "That One's" vote was worth as much as his. Are you kidding me?

So adorable

Not that adorable is usually a word I usually associate with a hedgehog, but come on folks, isn't this little albino hedgehog oh so adorable?

John McCain dog poop art

Greg Beauchamp, a Venice, California artist, designer and activist has been going around Venice and Santa Monica and added miniature flags into dog poop to make a statement about John McCain's policies and also to bring awareness to how much dog poop is out there. All right John McCain, clean up your act and policies, and you dog people, clean up after your canine friends.

Here are a few examples.

John McCain foreign policy



John McCain campaign tactics



John McCain maverick record

I got you

As I tried to take a picture of Amy, she quickly returned the favor.

Evening with 8

Last night I attended "Evening with 8 - Plus Smitty," a dining experience in Winston-Salem that allows participants to meet interesting people and eat great food. Organized by Smitty of Smitty's Notes fame, I got to enjoy 6 courses of nice German food with a complete mix of people from the Winston-Salem area. Plus if I actually drank beer I could have enjoyed 6 different varieties of German beer. :-)