Amarillo International Airport

Posted by Thomas Sun, 26 Nov 2006 20:14:40 +0000

I am waiting for a few more minutes here in the Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport with free wifi and figured that I might share some thoughts while still fresh. I was glad to be home and out of Atlanta, but I am also now glad to be heading back to Atlanta. I can only take so much of the “what do you want to eat”, “where do you want to eat”, “did you get enough to eat”, “do you have everything (luggage, camera, tickets)”, etc. I feel pretty hen pecked when they take my temperature on virtually everything. I know that they’re just trying to make my trip as wonderful as possible by making sure that they’re doing what I want to be doing, but in reality I don’t really care that much and am pretty low maintenance (or at least I like to think so) and so I would almost just rather prefer that someone else picked and I will be content with whatever decision is made. I think that my Dad is getting sappy in his old age. I would guess that my Mother is the same way, but knows to hide it a little more from me and to try and not be so Motherly (which I assume that she learned from the empty nest phase during the first few years of me being in college and some talks that we had). I guess they will always be parental, but for theirs and my sakes I wish they’d worry a lot less. It’s surprising that neither one of them has gotten ulcers… Somehow we managed to not see any movies nor did we talk about Baxter. I suppose that I was party to both counts, it seemed a little odd, especially that Baxter never came up. He’s buried in the back yard, so I went to see him twice and took some pictures. I thought that I would feel differently seeing the grave, but I guess that it’s been long enough that it didn’t really evoke much, which in itself made me a little sad.

I got to see Role and Jackson for most of the day on Friday, which was really good. TJ even stopped by a bit, being in Amarillo. Also, while my sisters and Mother shopped in Hobby Lobby, I wandered around the store and caught up with both Max and Ann Murphey (well she used to be Ann Murphey), both of whom I hadn’t talked to in quite some time, so it was good to catch up. All in all a really good weekend, getting to see the fam and getting to see and catch up with friends.

Apparently I have bad luck when it comes to air travel, as everyone seemed to mention it. My parents and even the neighbor mentioned my trouble. Anyway, it wasn’t something that I had even really thought about until several people brought it to my attention. In my mind, I really didn’t think that I have had too many issues… Odd how perceptions are different. I guess it’s just not one of those things that I think about or linger on. I figure that I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

I better sign off as I imagine that we’ll be boarding soon. Hope everybody had a Happy Thanksgiving!

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Thanksgiving Travel

Posted by Thomas Fri, 24 Nov 2006 02:56:02 +0000

I flew American Airlines this trip, which I am not sure if I will do again. For the leg from DFW to AMA, they would not issue me a seat assignment until I arrived in DFW. Upon my arrival (and with the skylink broken) I walked to my gate and received a seat assignment and a boarding pass. They announced around the boarding time that they were overweight and needed 4 volunteers to bump. None did and they basically recalled/confiscated my boarding pass. At this point, I’m wondering if I am going to get to Amarillo that night, as the flight that they mentioned during the bumping announcment was at 6am the next morning. But, they must have loosed some weight somewhere, as I think that all of the 4 of us that might have been involuntarily bumped weren’t, so I made it home as planned. A little disappointing, as I was almost in the mood for a tirade about their policy towards their customers. I even had a decent analogy to how it appears to me how baseball game tickets are also a racket, as you are not given re-entry rights. It’s like you aren’t buying/renting out a seat so much as buying a one time ticket through the door.

I read “The Bear and the Dragon” (which is actually Chad’s book) during the flight. I figured that I need the mental exercise in reading instead of sleeping. I got like 130 pages into it, I think.

On the flight from ATL to DFW, I did sit next to a very attractive young lady. I eventually built up enough courage to chit chat with her. I stammered something about whether or not she was flying home for the holiday. To which she replied that she had a wedding to go to this weekend and hence the trip. I tried to continue the conversation, which lasted for a couple of minutes. I figured that I would be polite and only carry it on if she did, which she didn’t, so that was that.

This is not a new sentiment, and I don’t know if I have ever mentioned it here, but some attractive woman is going to have to club me over the head. I can probably read women about as well as they can read me so I really just give up trying. So, like I said, this is not a new revelation, but perhaps worth repeating.

In other news, both my parents made mention of the possibility that I’ve gained some weight. Thinking about it now as I write, I am curious why they didn’t mention it before when they were in Atlanta… But, my Dad got the scale out and it weighed me at just under 200 pounds. It’s a nice feeling when you think that you’re gaining weight and then it is more or less confirmed. I think that I’ve floated around 185 for several years. I’ve had that sinking feeling about my metabolism slowing since I’ve moved to Atlanta, plus the fact that quite often I eat pretty late at night. Two factors that are not contributing to my skinniness. Like all good parents, I think that they were spining it and back pedalling, and I doubt that I could get a straight answer now about what they really thought, even if I asked them point blank. Maybe the bike was a good purchase after all.

Well, it’s rather late, even my my standards and I’m getting up “early” in the morning to head out to Palo Duro Canyon for a little photo shoot with Cole and Rachel. Should be fun.

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Shorter hair

Posted by Thomas Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:55:52 +0000

It seems that it has been quite some time since my last post, a week to be exact, for which I apologize to my noble and illustrious readers. I must be on quite the Jimmy Stewart kick, as I have watched “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, “Rear Window”, and “The Philadelphia Story” (which I am currently in the middle of). Both “Rear Window” and “Accepted” were really good, and “The Philadelphia Story” is looking pretty good at this point, too. You should watch the director’s commentary of “Accepted”, as it has virtually nothing to do with the movie that these guys are watching, and more to do with the making fun of each other and generally goofing off. It was a really good time. I watched some Airwolf, MacGuyver, MXC, Get Smart, and MythBusters this weekend. I’m really digging the variety. I continue on to try and catch up on my old movie backlog, which I’m sure will take me quite some time. This little endeavor has, though, gained me quite a whole new appreciation for actresses before my time, such as Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Shirley MacLaine, and Audrey Hepburn.

My apartment complex recently had need to shut off the water to the entire complex several times over several days, during business hours. I’d say that this happened roughly 3 to 4 times over a week or so. It definitely took me at least two tries to get through a shower without them cutting off the water half way through. Once or twice I misjudged the time, and once the notice fell off my door, so I was caught completely unaware.

The new cable has been pretty worthless. I watched it for a day or two, and remembered why I didn’t miss it (especially since I don’t get channels like 3-6 on my tv, as it is somewhat decrepit, and counts me out of some of the probably better broadcast programming). Comcast was quite efficient in their billing, as it has already come, which reminds me that I need to expense it.

I somehow managed to get my external into an odd state, where it now has XFS on it, instead of the normal FAT32. I didn’t have enough to rectify this, so I had to break out the good ol’ fibre channel for a bit to get the external back to a state where just about any o/s can read it. I can fill in the mundane details later, for those of you who care. I’ve played with LVM before, but always more in a playful way than in a production way. And I knew that it wasn’t the most intuitive thing in the world, so I had to mess with it some to get it to bow to my will.

Oh, I got a haircut this weekend, as I was going to a wedding on Saturday. The haircut went ok. The sides are a lot shorter than I prefer, and there is some long hair in the front (like everyone seems to leave long with the part not in the middle), but other than that, I can’t complain. The wedding was small, but good. It was the first that it wasn’t a Wesleyite and hence wasn’t a wedding where I felt like I’d known them forever and knew lots of other Wesleyites in attendance as well.

It’s been pretty cold at night here, so I haven’t been riding at all in the mornings. I caught up on some laundry over the weekend. I had a fun adventure both dropping off and picking up my suit from the cleaners. During the drop-off, the Indian lady was trying to ask me a question, which I couldn’t understand at all, and asked her to repeat mabye half a dozen times. I still didn’t understand and finally another employee (that was on the phone at the time) stepped in and said the word “Thursay”, which is what she had been trying to convey to me, that the suit would be ready to pick up on Thursday. Which was fine, of course, but it was definitely a tough time getting through the thick accent communication barrier. Then, when I went to pick it up Friday after paintball (yes, I know get over it), I had an almost even harder time getting it back, as they apparently couldn’t read my hand writing, tought that the G was an E and finally a C to figure out where they had my suit stashed among the racks and racks of clothes. I finally got it back, but question if I would go back there again. They also left some odd oily (or what seem to be oil) marks on my white shirt. I dunno what to think about that, but I’ll have some time before I need more stuff dry cleaned.

This past week I’ve meant to blog about the stuff like the dry cleaners and the water being cut off, but let it slip and they both might have gone by the wayside, but I happened to remember them tonight while I was writing, so you all can partake in my life a little more. I should try to do a little better about shooting off little bloglets when I think of funny things that happen.

Anyway, I am looking forward to getting out of Dodge. I’m getting pretty stir crazy around here…

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I liked it better when it was called Fight Club

Posted by Thomas Mon, 13 Nov 2006 02:04:13 +0000

My hair is too long.
I have new shoes (for a little while now).
I’m getting cable tomorrow.
I want to go snow skiing.
I am one click away from buying a new $300 coffee table that I’ve been lusting after since I don’t know when, but $300 is a lot. That’s like half of a new computer (a really decent one) or 3 400 GB drives (on sale). All things that I really could do with. Why oh why doesn’t money grow on trees?

Posted in General | 4 Comments

Soapy-box

Posted by Thomas Sun, 12 Nov 2006 01:14:27 +0000

Why would you condone text-speak abbreviations in official high school exams? It’s lame. And why don’t they just put an extremely heavy weight on spelling? Wouldn’t that be an semi-unbiased way to make sure that the kids know that they should use the appropriate spelling, while simultaneously not punishing the content for the poor spelling?

I was today forwarded to me an email of some propoganda of the American Family Association, stating that Best Buy has banned the use of Merry Christmas in their advertising. Apparently this is an abomination, although it is beyond me as to why. Can anyone tell me why they have a problem with this? Best Buy is an international corportation (albeit a small one, with only US and Canadian stores). Corporations don’t care about you, they only care about their bottom lines and their stock holders (well, supposedly their stock holders). They only pseudo-care about you if they loose you as a customer, so I would imagine that they thought long and hard and chose the decision that would piss off the fewest of their likely customers. Also, I’m not quite sure what exactly their expectations are from this campaign. They want everyone to email Best Buy, but there is no mention of boycott or anything else. Are they just bitching and whining about this? Seriously, what did you expect from a corporation? It’s the American way, the realization of American dream, and capitalism all at work. It would appear that the major reason why this is even brought up is due to several other corporations changing their stance from previous years. Also, it appears that they have a problem with Borat. Are they aware that it was fictional? That jokes make fun of things? That we don’t have to be offended by every little thing? That the “Running of the Jews” really is a funny premise? That it is really funny in the context of the movie while simultaneously really sad that there really are real people in the world that honestly and completely hate certain people-groups. It is honestly sad. But in a make-pretend movie, it’s ok to laugh, honest. :)

Ok, off my soapbox now.

I watched “Stranger than Fiction”, which was really good. I’ve also watched “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” today, which I accidentally napped through parts of. I went to see Borat a little while ago, which I loved. And I watched “Roman Holiday”, which I seemed to recall loving as well. My Netflix queue is filled with old movies at the moment, including “Mr. Smith…”. I seem to be on a kick to try to whittle down my list of movies I need to watch from the IMDB Top 250. Well, that and I’m still really low on modern movies that I want to watch.

Does anyone else ever feel like no matter how hard they try, that there are a great many things that they cannot will into happening?

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The Weekend

Posted by Thomas Sun, 05 Nov 2006 14:30:37 +0000

REL was in town. I thought about going, and maybe should have, but didn’t.

I whole-heartedly and completely agree that this is gibberish to me as well.

Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘I can’t configure Debian’.

I watched “The Break-Up” (which was still good), “Thank You for Smoking” (which was ok), and I’ll be watching “Roman Holiday” sometime today most likely.

I knew it. I didn’t think that I had much of an accent. Now irrefutable internet proof!

What American accent do you have?

Your Result: The Midland

“You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

The West

The South

Boston

North Central

The Inland North

Philadelphia

The Northeast


What American accent do you have?


Take More Quizzes

Posted in General, Movies | 4 Comments

Rent-buhwhaa?

Posted by Thomas Thu, 02 Nov 2006 01:12:41 +0000

Is today the 1st? Is rent due today? I have no idea what day it is. At least this week I know what day of the week it is. It’s been a stressful week and I can feel it in my upper back. Hopefully only one more stressful day (Thursday) this week. :)

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