Kiersten Jane

Bill & Wendy have sent me some updated pictures of my beautiful niece ... and she happens to be wearing my Christmas presents (with a little help on the one from Ricky and Melissa, but the sun dress was all me :) ) ... so I thought I'd share.  They seem to think that this makes her 'hick,' I am trying to convey to them that's only relative, she'd be picking up all the guys down here :)  Enjoy, I did!

It's About Time ...

Yes, yes, I know, I've been slacking on the blog.  I was sick, sorry.   I have had a great last couple of weeks.  My birthday was really good.  I went to church in the morning and then to Cracker Barrel for lunch and cake with the Hutchison's afterwards.  After gorging myself, I went coyote hunting with Ricky up in Tennessee.  We didn't see any coyote's, but we did see two owls.  The owls were beautiful, they came in really close and were there for a while.  They're lucky they're protected :)  The day finished with another great home cooked meal from Melissa.  I tried keeping my birthday a secret from everyone at work, but when Eddy found out he forced me to take a half a day of work which we spent at the shooting range then went to his house and enjoyed a great cigar and steaks.  

The weekend following my birthday, Ricky and I went down with some other guys at work to a private deer hunting area that Stump brought us to for the last day of deer season.  As most of you know, I've been immersing myself in the 'Southern' (i.e. Redneck) culture as much as possible ... this has taken the cake thus far.  We stopped by the Mossy Oak store in Mississippi before we headed down to York, AL (middle of NOWHERE) where the lodge was at.  The gentleman that owned the lodge was probably in his 80's and had lots of great, 'southern,' stories.  The first story that Ricky and I heard was told with *proof* from his trail camera that his land had some HUGE bobcats on it ... only thing was, Ricky and I had seen thos

e pictures several times during this winter in an email that goes around pretty frequently and the true story is on Snopes.  We had a lot of fun, and came back with a lot of great stories and jokes, and I got my first deer.  I had 3 does and a cull buck (it had a 3 point on one side and a stub on the other) in front of my shooting house for about an hour and a half that were close enough that I could hear them pulling the grass out of the ground as they were eating.  I was hoping for a larger buck but as it started to get dark, a turkey spooked the deer and I took a shot at the buck.  One of the does stayed and about 5 minutes later another one came back and I shot one of the does also.  I ended up not finding the buck, which we believe was the same buck that Ricky had shot earlier in the day (hence it's nickname 'Bionic Buck') but the doe dropped within 10 yards.  Stump got the deer back from the processor yesterday and I had some jerky made with my first deer today.  It was a lot of fun and provided some great stor

ies for my first deer.  I took a bunch of pictures and you can see them here (note the warning on the albums).

Work has slowed down a bit.  It's very strange not working 50-60 hour weeks so I'm trying to find things to do with my time (I'm updating my blog, aren't I?!?!)  It's a nice break and I'm sure that the busy times will be back very shortly.

Maybe if I actually get to updating this more often I will remember all of the funny things that happen routinely to provide ya'll with some entertainment :)

I hope everyone is well and miss all of you!

Boring Week

It's been one week since my last confession...hahaha.  Nothing too exciting happening this week but I did promise I'd be better at updating my blog.  I've watched some good movies the last week or so.  A friend and I went and watched Grand Tourino this weekend.  The movie was great, but outside of Clint Eastwood, I thought the acting was horrible.  The Dark Knight and The Happening were also both good.  Blue Ray and a 52" HDTV are awesome :)  I got my first bow this week so I've got lots of time to practice before next season - and according to some of the guys at work my neck is staring to turn pretty red.  I explain it is just me balancing out this 'pretty boy' reputation that I have somehow gotten :)  I am heading down to south Alabama on the 31st to go deer hunting with Ricky and some other guys from work  It will be my last chance to leave the season not being empty handed.  I'm definitely not complaining, I've learned a lot my first year hunting.  OH!  And I finally am supposed to get my hair cut tomorrow, that is if she doesn't call in sick this time haha.  I guess that's all that has been going on this week.  Hopefully I'll be able to provide some more humor at my expense next week.

Yes...I am still alive

It has been a crazy month.  I had a great Christmas in Florida with my mom, dad, Tom & Mandi.  In all reality, how could Christmas not be great when you play golf in the mid-80's :)  Dad and I decided we would run out and play a quick nine holes before we had to go pick up Mandi and Tom at the Tampa airport.  After nine holes, I was beating my dad by one stroke.  Mind you, this was the first time I have played since exactly a year ago when I was down there last Christmas.  I figured this was the best Christmas gift ever, since I have never beat Dad before.  We were just going to play 10 since my parents house is on the fairway and that would give mom and opportunity to see us play.  Needless to say, Dad decided we'd just go ahead and finish the back 9 and I ended up losing by a couple of strokes.  I'm sure he only decided to make the turn just to be able to spend more time with me, it had NOTHING to do with him being beat :)

Since I wasn't able to spend New Years down there with Tom and Mandi, we decided we'd hit up the local pub for a few drinks.  My parents don't live in a "Retirement Community," but 99% of the people that live there seem to be retired.  Including all of the people that would frequent this bar which is within the gates of the community.  We had a great time and I picked up some tips on how to pick up women from some of the guys in the bar.  I think I'm going to start with unbuttoning the top few buttons of my shirt and hoping my chest hair grows some more.  

Tom and I also developed a new mantra to live by...whenever we are unsure of what to do in a certain situation, we just ask ourselves, "What would John Daly do?"  I think it will get us both far.

New years was a new one for me, yet another 'Southern Tradition' to knock off the list of things to do :)  I was at Ricky's at 3:15 on New Years day to go to Tennessee to deer hunt.  While we didn't see Bambi or any of her relatives, Wile E. Coyote didn't make it.  Now, there have been some vicious rumors about me shooting Mr. Coyote.  For the record, it was my second time deer hunting, I didn't know I was supposed to shoot coyotes since I was hunting deer, and I hit him hard enough to roll him over and keep him down for 15-20 seconds.  That's all I'm saying on that subject :)

After hunting we went back to Ricky's where I got to have my first Southern New Year's meal.  Melissa cooked an awesome meal, as always, but the highlights are the parts that you have to eat every New Years.  You have hog jaw for health, collared greens for money, and black eyed peas for good luck.  While the hog jaw and the collared greens weren't really included in the 'awesome meal' statement, the black eyed peas were good :)  After last year, I'm willing to try anything for the coming year hahahaha!

Lets see, what else exciting has been happening.......I was finally supposed to get my hair cut on Wed. after not having it cut since July, but the girl cutting my hair called in sick and still isn't back to reschedule yet.  So, it looks like the 'fro might be around for a little while longer.  Earlier this week I got a streak of motivation and decided I needed to spring clean my apartment.  I'm pretty much done now, my bedroom no longer looks like a bedroom/garage/hunting store and now looks more like, well, a bedroom.  I did manage to throw away an entire truckload of stuff that I decided I no longer need.  I also have a bunch of stuff to donate.

That's all I can think of to ramble about now.  I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff I wanted to put in here but that will leave something for next time.  I promise to try and be better about updating now that the holiday's are over.  I also didn't put any pictures in here because I figured it would just be easer to include a link to all of them this time.