Eclectus
Marie & I have a competiton going where the first one of us to lose 20 pounds gets a gift of their choice, within reason. Last weekend Marie & I drove out to Middleville to check out an Eclectus parrot named Jake that Marie was interested in getting if she won. He was a cool bird, very friendly - and potty trained! Whenever he needs to go to the bathroom, he goes to his cage. Here’s a pic of him hanging out on my shoulder:
So far neither one of us is doing well as far as the weight loss goes. I had lost 5 pounds at one point but then gained a couple of them back. It doesn’t really help that I don’t exercise like I should. I’ve been doing good about eating healthier and staying away from junk food but that only does so much. I need to start getting back on the excercise bike a least a couple times a week.
My brother’s wife gave birth to a baby girl, Natalie Lynn, on Thursday morning. Marie & I went up to the hospital Thursday night after work to visit the little one. Look at those cheeks!
Last night I went to Club North with Ryan. I haven’t been there in awhile so I thought I would do it up a bit and I ended up having 5 Redbull/Vodka’s. It’s hard to resist when they are only $3/each up until midnight. And for the record, Red Bull does absolutely nothing to me as far as energy goes (I went right to bed after the bar). I spent alot of time chatting with friends who I haven’t seen in awhile and by the end of the night I had a sore throat and was losing my voice.
It truely was a lazy Sunday. Marie’s mom took Ethan for a few hours while Marie & I went out for lunch and then we hit up Best Buy and a couple of pet stores. We then came back home to get the dogs and went to Riverside park and walked for an hour before heading to Marie’s parents to pickup Ethan. Marie got really frustrated when she weighed herself and discovered she gained 2 pounds from last week.
Monday is here again and too soon as usual. I’ve got a million projects going on at work but I’m having a hard time getting any of them completed as I keep getting pulled in different directions. Hopefully this week I’ll make some progress…
6 months old
A couple weeks ago my friends Dan & Joanna over at Terpstra Photography did a photo shoot with Ethan shortly after he turned six months old. Since it was close to Easter and Marie & I are big animal lovers, we decided to include our rabbit Finley in some of the pictures. Below are three of my favorites.
I think he’s stealing bolts and arms
This past Monday Marc, Hoo, Marie & I drove out to the State Theatre in Detroit for the Sisters of Mercy show. This was the third time I have seen them and I have to say this show was the worst performance by far. The band sounded great but Andrew’s vocals were all over the place. Most of the time I could barely hear him and when I could, he was practically howling. The smoke machine was on overload and half way thru the show, I couldn’t even see the band on the stage. The best part of the trip was having dinner at Red Robin’s! Nothing will compare to the Philadelphia show, that’s for sure.
On Wednesday I called the car insurance company that was on the accident report to file a mini tort. She told me the woman had not filed a claim yet so she needed to get a bunch of information from me. After being on the phone for what seemed like forever, she said an insurance adjuster would contact me by Friday. Friday came and went and I didn’t hear from anyone. Then on Saturday I get a letter in the mail saying that the drivers insurance lapsed on November 2003! Her phone # was on the accident report so I called her to find out if she did indeed have insurance. She said she did not. Great. So I told her that I wanted her to pay for the repair to my vehicle and that we could do it outside or inside of court. She then said she had to go to work and she would call me on Sunday. So do you think she called? Of course not. I’m going to give her one more chance and if she doesn’t respond, I guess I’ll see her in small claims court. Argh.
On Saturday I picked up 6 tiger barbs for my 29g tank - 4 regular and 2 albino tiger barbs. So far everybody is getting along great. It’s so cool to see so much activity in that tank. I fed them for the first time today and it was like a feeding frenzy! That brings the total fish count in that tank to 14 - 8 tiger barbs, 2 juli cory’s, 2 pandy cory’s and 2 oto’s. BTW, the oto’s went to town on the tank. After a week and a half, they completely got rid of all of the brown algae that was on the decorations. I haven’t had to scrape the sides of my tank during water changes once since I got them.
Ethan got his third set of shots on Wednesday and since then, he hasn’t been sleeping thru the night. The last couple of days he’s been waking up 2-3 times during the night. Hopefully it’s just a temporary thing and he goes back to sleeping all night soon. Friday night we watched our neighbors kid Bayden, who is almost a year old. Marie went over there at 5:30pm and I showed up around 6:30pm after getting out of work. It was quite the scene as she was trying to handle two crying baby’s. He’s a really cute kid and I was hoping that him and Ethan would get to play with each other but Bayden is an early sleeper and went to bed at 7pm. The first time the two of them met it was quite the scene. They were talking back and forth and couldn’t get enough of each other. It was too darn cute. As cute as it was tho, I still only want one of my own.
I got my Jeep back today from Steve. There are still a few things that need to be done (alignment, paint job, etc) but it’s driveable. He did a really good job and for the price, I can’t complain. It has about 90,000 miles on it and I’m hoping I’ll get another 90,000 out of it. One things for sure - after having a Jeep, there’s no way I’m ever going back to a car.
My poor Jeep
So Marie, Ethan & I were heading home from the pet store with my two panda cory’s last week Thursday around 8:30pm. We were coming up on a green light at the intersection of Plainfield & I-96, about a mile from our house. A white mini-van without their headlights on was sitting at the turn lane for the I-96 on-ramp. I’m almost to the light when the van turns right in front of me. I slam on the brakes but it’s raining so I end up sliding right into the passenger side of the van. I quickly pull off to the side of the road as I’m afraid I’m going to get rear ended.
Thankfully none of us were hurt. When we went to the backseat to check on Ethan, he was completely unphased. Marie & I both just went off on the lady that was driving the van. I called 911 and the cops showed up about 10 minutes later. I called my in-laws since they live right around the corner and I wanted them to take Ethan away from the accident. Steve had my Jeep towed to his work since the right tire was blown and the rim was broken. Marie was having some neck and back pain from the impact so the paramedics were called and took her to the emergency room. I rode with her in the ambulance and we ended up spending almost 4 hours at the emergency room. They did some xrays and everything looked good. We didn’t get home until 1am that night.
The next day Steve got a new rim and tire on my Jeep and drove it to his house. Thankfully, most of the damage was done to the body on the right front side. Here is a shot of the Jeep after Steve removed the grill and right panel:
The frame was bent up a little by the right headlight so that had to be bent back. Steve had a buddy of his order all the replacement parts and we were able to get them at a good price. Some of them are original used Jeep parts while others are some Taiwan repo’s. Since I just switched from full coverage to PLPD a couple of months ago, I’m not going to get more than $500, which is barely going to cover the cost of the parts alone. After it’s all put back together, I’m gonna have to get a paint job since the replacement hood and the front right panel are two different colors. Sounds like a good time to pick a new color.
Oh yeah, the pandy cory’s are doing fine.
Weekend of Horrors
The Fangoria Weekend of Horrors this past weekend was a good time, even if it was just Jason, Brad & I. I arrived at the hotel around 8pm Friday night, about 20 minutes after Jason & Brad arrived. Good timing. After getting settled in, we went down to the bar and had a couple of pitchers. Mick Garris & Tom Savini were hanging out at the bar, throwing back a few. They were chatting it up with some fans. That’s one of the great things about these conventions. You can really get up close and personal with these guys (and girls) and find out how cool or how much of a jerk they really are.
Saturday morning we waited in line for what seemed like forever just to get our wristbands. I really think they make people wait in line forever on purpose so next year you will shell out the $159 for a Gold Pass. Next year I’m going with a t-shirt that reads “Fuck your Gold Pass”. The freebies table had most of the standard stuff - posters, pins, etc. I did manage to pick up a cool Hills Have Eyes t-shirt, an Anchor Bay bag and an assortment of other goodies. A select few managed to get Masters of Horror backpacks. Lucky bastards.
We first checked out the various vendors to see what they had to offer. In the end, I ended up only buying a couple of posters and the special edition of Pieces on DVD. One of the best (and funniest) panels of the weekend was the Slither panel. James Gunn and Nathan Fillion were cracking me up. I could be wrong but I swear Michael Rooker was drunk. Good times. Later that day, they were bussing the first 300 people that got in line to a sneak peek of Slither at a local theatre. We managed to get great seats. Lloyd Kaufman showed up, along with all of the stars from Slither. It was a fun movie thats got some great one liners and is gooey as all get out. I definately recommend checking it out when it hits theatres March 31st.
I got a chance to check out Mick Garris’ episode of Masters of Horror entitled Chocolate. It was an interesting episode and it was cool to see Henry Thomas in a horror project. I also saw Stuart Gordon’s episode entitled Dreams in the Witch House, based on the H.P. Lovecraft story. That was also a good episode. I actually got a chance to meet him and had him sign my Re-Animator laserdisc. He got a kick out of Jeremy Comb’s autograph on it which said “Rodney - I gave him life”. Stuart drew an arrow pointing to Jeffrey and wrote “And I gave him a career”. Good stuff.
We also got to see previews from Silent Hill & the Hills Have Eyes remake that is coming out this weekend. They had a panel with the actors from Silent Hill, one of which was Debra Unger. She was looking quite fine. Alex Aja, the director of the Hills remake, was there answering question also. Tony Timpone made the bold statement of saying he saw the remake and said it’s better than the original! He got quite the big ‘boo’ from the crowd when he said that (and rightfully so). This is coming from a guy that loved the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake so it’s not really saying much.
Thanks again to Brad & Jason for letting me crash in your hotel room. Oh yeah, Wasabi Peas rule.