News From Everywhere

It’s update time after another long interval. As a quick note here, there are so many stories meriting pictures that I'm only going to be able to post one or two apiece.

Barring any unforeseen catastrophe, my parents will be coming down this weekend to celebrate my birthday. I’ll have been 21 for 7 years on Saturday. Shelly’s promised that we can go to Brixx’s, and if the UNC boys pull out a win, it should be a good day for me. The last time I had a Saturday birthday was 2003.

In the 'foreseen catastrophe' department, my mother might have to go to jury duty this week, which could interfere with the weekend plans. Hopefully she’ll have no triple murder trials, being as she’s going to be hearing Annapolis cases and not Baltimore.

Speaking of Maryland’s homicide capital, I had a long conversation with Justin last night!
He’s doing well since the adoption of his ‘twins’ (see attached picture), and has recently undertaken a crusade against the neighborhood rats who, inexplicably, chewed through several wires in his car. Even more perplexing is that any living thing survived extended contact with his car in the first place.

(I was tempted to just download one picture and flip it around, but Shelly talked me out of it. Speaking of which, why aren't they taking care of the rat problem?!)

So, right after the last time I blogged, Shelly and I attended the NCCU Barrister’s Ball! It was great to see the future lawyers of America show, once again, that the average dance floor hormonal level suffers no decrease from Junior High all the way to the third year of Law School. Also, Shelly and I were beset by a tiny dance floor wrecking ball, who careened off random party goers at full tilt and almost knocked Shelly over (though she was saved by the timely intervention of her husband). Apparently fueled by copious amounts of ... er, spirit, I guess ... DC's newest public interest advocate really went all out for the last Law School dance! Here's a shot of the affair:

The next day, once I'd procured breakfast from the nearby Hardee's and finished holding back Shelly's hair from the lengthy vomiting session (no one took that seriously except you, honey, and no, I'm not changing it!), the two of us trudged to Charlotte's first birthday party! Since Shelly buys something for the little tyke pretty much every time we go to Target (the words "Oh, that would look so cute on Charlotte" ring nearly continuously in my ears these days), we were well equipped with the requisite present- fortunately, otherwise Erika might well have refused us entry!

The entire Hawkins/Bianchi clan showed up; here are a couple of pics. Matt looks disgruntled due to being forced to take a three hour rest from a 14 hour video game marathon.

Moving right along, later that week, the most fickle day of the year reared its ugly head. "Fickle?" you sputter. "What does he mean by that?" Well, it can either get your lady in an exceptional grateful, gushing mood ... or ... should your offering to the Valentine's Day gods be found lacking, lead to all sorts of nasty things: Spending nights on the futon, dodging heavy flying objects, and explaining to the summoned peace officers the 'funny story' behind that fist-shaped bruise darkening your right eye.

Fortunately, due to careful planning, I was one of the lucky former. I paid dearly for it, though, and I'm still having trouble sitting due to the reaming I received at the hands of Godiva Chocolate. A trip to Kanki's and a boutique of tulips later, though, I was safely in Shelly's good graces, and thus it was all worth it. And speaking of those tulips, here they are, in a token picture representing the occasion:Thus we move on to two weekends ago, when Jen left for Jamaica, my brother left for Florida, and I went to see Jumper with Shelly. If ever you're explaining to your kids the unfairness of life, go ahead and use this as an example. Some of the bite is taken out of it, though, by my procrastination- both of them have been and gone since last I wrote. HA!

Shelly and I liked Jumper, and it's worth going to see. I was just grateful it wasn't done in the 'first-person camcorder' perspective like Cloverfield. I'm getting nauseated just thinking about it now.

Also in news, my cousin Susan had her fourth (and last?) baby two weeks ago. Here's little Luke with his parents:

He had some complications, due mainly to the fact that he was a bit late, but he's home now and doing well. Good luck, Brad and Susan!

Finally, Shelly finished with her Moot Court competition this past week. Her team didn't make it to the finals, but she did get the distinct honor of doing and oral argument for the Individual Rights model of the Second Amendment! She felt she did very well, and I really wish I could have gone to see her, but they did not allow visitors and I thought it'd be a poor use of my Second Amendment rights to force entry by means of arms. And it might have affected the quality of the arguments themselves!

So here, the last picture of the night:

And now, the answer to the question everyone's been waiting for the last three weeks: What was that last picture in the Google Earth spread that I posted?

Answer: The Fuquay Mineral Spring Inn and Garden! Where Shelly and I got married! (Told you heat was a factor!)

Alright, goodnight all! Hope you enjoyed this long-overdue blog!

Just a Quickie

First, get your mind out of the gutter.

Anyway, what a game, huh? That's how a Super Bowl should be played! The lead switched 3 times in the 4th quarter, which is apparently a Super Bowl record! It seems like a lot of the ones I've watched lately have been blow-outs, so it was good to see a nail-biter for a change. It was a shame that the Patriot's perfect season got ruined on the very last game, but you can't say the Giants didn't earn it.

Also, I want everyone who reads my blog to make me a solemn oath. Should you ever, in your life, find yourself in possession of a video camera, and some gigantic, aquatic creature attacks your city, promise me that you won't use that as an excuse to practice abysmal videography. For instance, even if small parasidic creatures fall off the larger one and attack you, please don't sweep the camera wantonly from side to side. And if you find yourself in a situation where you just can't maintain a steady hand (for instance, if you're riding in a helocopter, and the creature singles you out for a vindictive swipe), just shut the thing off for a minute, and pick back up once you've crashed. Please? You never know; maybe your video will end up on the big screen, and if you fail to heed my advice, you'll end up making a lot of people very sick. More importantly, you'll make me sick, and after yesterday's viewing of Cloverfield, I just can't take any more of that. Life-threatening situations are no excuse for bad form, people.

Just as an aside, here, have you all used Google Earth? I downloaded it after a positive recommendation from my parents, and it's really cool! Here's a picture of my parent's house, then a picture of my apartment complex (my building's circled in red):

Just for fun, can anyone guess what's significant about the next photo? (Hint: heat was a factor)