April 27, 2005:  Just a quick update today, it's been a long week and its only tuesday!  It seems like nearly every computer that I have touched lately has fallen to pieces immediately after.  My laptop at home got destroyed by some spyware and is about halfway to being fixed.  My machine at work won't run half the applications I need to do my job and nobody seems to be able to figure out why.  That doesn't sound like much of a problem but the other night I was on call and got paged to fix something, the laptop was sitting on the table with no operating system so I drove to work, to find that my computer was a mess there too.  Instead of the 20 minutes it would have taken to figure out the problem, I was here for three hours, not getting home until almost 1am.  This is another week of hell for Lisa, preparing for exams and presentations has kept her more than busy since the end of last week.  We never did make it to that movie like we had planned, that was the weekend we ended up going to NH at the last minute.  Hopefully after school settles down just a little we'll make it out to see it.  The door for Dave's basement came out pretty well, he has to install it this week sometime.  I'm still waiting on a couple things for the Rincon to get it totally ready for summer.  I did get the new exhaust installed but without the quiet core insert, I hope it does what it claims because it's louder than thunder without it.  I also had to (arm was twisted of course) order a new tool to adjust the fuel/air mixture, there is basically no way to get a screwdriver of any sort in to that space other than using this tool, I'll throw a picture of it up when it comes in, I can't wait to see it!  Lisa has her sweaters, I have my tools.  Have a great week. 

April 23, 2005:  Back home at last, it was a long week but I had a great time.  Wednesday night my brother and I walked around a bit and found a small pub to get some food and beers at.  We got a table on the sidewalk and enjoyed the end of the warm weather.  On our way back to my hotel we walked by a commercial being filmed, the star was Whoopi Goldberg, we were like 10 ft. away from her, I guess that was pretty cool.  I got to meet up with my friend Alice on Thursday after class.  She coached me through riding the subway downtown to meet her at work, even though I could have done it by myself, I think.  We walked around SOHO, checked out some really cool shops, and had dinner at this little Italian restaurant.  While we were eating a couple of people walked by the table from behind me, Alice blurted out, "do you know who that was?"  I only saw them from the side so I said, "not really".  She was like, "that was Elvis Costello".  I looked again as he was leaving the room and caught a quick glimpse of his profile, it was definitely him.  After dinner we took the subway to Grand Central Station and I picked up a chocolate mousse cake for Lisa from the famous Junior's Restaurant out of Brooklyn, NY.  We got a slice of it last time we were all in the city and she said it was the best cake she has ever had.  It's a pretty serious cake too, less than 10" in diameter and it weighs over 2 lbs.  I had to walk almost 9 blocks to get back to my hotel from Grand Central, it was nice enough outside but my arm got pretty tired from carrying that damn cake!  Class ended on Friday and I got back after dinner and crashed early.  Today I got some new accessories installed on the Rincon and updated a bunch of pictures on the website.  I added a couple of pictures and a video to the Tuckerman's trip, a picture of us to the Just Us section, and a bunch of pictures to the ATV section too.  Tomorrow my brother and I have to build a new door for the basement at his rental, maybe I'll get some pics if I remember.  Have a great week, we'll talk again soon.

April 19, 2005:  Just got back from the Dinosaur BBQ NYC, it was awesome as always.  I got my favorite, The Big Ass Pork Plate and it was very tasty.  After that my brother, his friend Scott and I drove around the city for a while then walked around SOHO a bit before they dropped me back off here at the hotel, it was fun to enjoy the nice weather instead of just going to bed early like I did last night.  Driving around here is absolutely the most insane thing I have ever been a part of,I'm glad I don't have to do it myself.  My brother let me borrow his digital camera so I could get some pictures of the square out my hotel window, I'll post them below.  Class has been pretty good, I'm actually learning quite a bit.  The teacher is decent, easy to understand and not stuck on how much he knows and all the things he has done like the last class I took.  I guess it's supposed to be warm again tomorrow so hopefully I will be able to find something cool to do after class.  I might end up meeting up with an old friend on Thursday for dinner or something, that would be cool.  Anyway, we'll talk again soon.

April 15, 2005:  Well, it's Friday, so that has to be good right?  It is, actually it's great because I am off to training in NYC next week so it's almost like a Friday before vacation to me.  The weather is supposed to be awesome this weekend and it looks like it might even stay that way all next week too.  The week has been pretty quiet, Lisa has been studying for two test she had on Monday and Wednesday and I have been recovering for a week full of insane days at work.  Just as I suspected the projects we've been working on exploded this week and have been taking up a ridiculous amount of my time, so much that I haven't been able to get the rest of my work done.  Isis's vet told us this week that it's not a big deal to give her xanax in the morning and xanax in the evening if we want to leave her alone again, we were worried that we might overdose her by doing that but they assured us she would be fine.  That means we can finally go out and enjoy each other's company once in a while so we're going to try this brew pub out in Amherst Saturday night and then catch a movie after, maybe Fever Pitch or something like that.  We figure that we were living here in MA when the curse was broken so it wouldn't hurt to see the movie that they finished filming on the field during the celebration after the final game of the World Series, even if it means we will be in a room with god knows how many crazy Red Sox fans for 2 hours.  If it's warm enough earlier in the day we will probably take the bikes out to Quabbin on the trails that we went snow shoeing on this winter, of course Isis will have to go to.  I honestly can't work on my bike without her freaking out like we are going for a ride, forget about it if I grab my bike shoes or my helmet.  My old roommate Kim got a job working for Microsoft in Seattle, WA and starts in a few weeks.  That is very exciting for her because they are moving her from NC all the way out west, should be like a new world compared to the south.  We are psyched because Seattle is on our list of places we are considering moving after graduation and now we have someone to stay with when we check it out this fall, thanks Kim!  All of the people we know that have either visited or lived there tell us that we would love it, hopefully they are right because we've had about enough of MA and the rest of New England for a while.  Anyway, I guess that's it for me, I'll try to get another update in next weekend, have a great week and we'll talk again soon!

April 10, 2005:  What a weekend!  The weather here has been awesome.  Lisa worked Saturday and spent today studying out in the sun and I did a bunch of messing around in the garage and whatnot.  I got a bunch of stuff done both yesterday and today.  The trailer is all re-assembled, repaired, and ready to go for the season.  The Rincon is ready to go for now, got the front brakes cleaned and adjusted and every thing else checked out.  Most of the parts I ordered a few weeks ago have come in, hopefully I'll get to install them in a couple weeks.  I got the kayak and bike racks installed on the Element for the summer and got my bike out, tuned up, and ready to help me get rid of all the Wendy's I've been eating.  So everything is ready for Summer.  Isis and I went for a walk today and she even got to go for a quick swim in the lake.  I couldn't even put my foot in the water it was so cold.  I had to make her stop, I was afraid she would get hypothermia, she was pretty bummed that we left.  Work was pretty crazy this week and will probably be even worse next week.  We are in the middle of a bunch of projects, most of which include lots of interaction with users, which often ends up taking way to much time.  Hopefully this week won't be as bad as I expect it might.  I'm going to be in NYC starting next weekend for training, I will be staying in Times Square so that should be cool.  The tattoo is healing up really well, I'll get some pictures up when its totally healed.  I still can't believe it's done when I see it in the mirror, I'm very happy with how it came out.  Anyway, its getting to be time to crash.  Have a great week.

April 3, 2005:  IT'S FINISHED!!!  My trip out to Rochester for my last sitting on the tattoo was very successful, we were done ahead of schedule and everything.  It was a long three hours but it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders as I was leaving the shop.  I really enjoy visiting all my friends out there but it will be nice to not be committed to that drive every other weekend anymore, that and gas is $0.50 more a gallon than it was when I started this thing.  I ended up driving back to MA Friday afternoon, picking up Isis, and driving up to my folks house in NH, it was a very long day.  Kevin was going out with some friends for beers so I met them at the Millyard before the party moved to The Trail House across town.  I had a good time and saw a couple people I haven't seen in a while, including Jeremy, a guy that used to be my friend Eric's roommate in Boston.  He's in a new band, Masceo, and I guess they are doing very well, might even be playing in the area soon too.  I'm listening to the sample MP3s on their website right now and they aren't bad, kind of has a Blind Melon feel to it, that's the first thing that came to my mind anyway, check out their site.  I ran a couple errands with Gregg in North Conway on Saturday, stopped by my grandfather's place to see the new hot tub and visit a bit, then got back in the trusty Element, which just passed 36K miles in a little more than a year, for the ride back home.  Lisa has been in Florida all weekend with the girls from school and I had a lot to do before work on Monday so I really wanted to wake up at home on Sunday and have the whole day to get stuff done.  Today has been pretty productive, I got the bills paid, plate bracket that my dad made for me mounted on the trailer, and the tin lamp I picked up in NH wired and hung in the bedroom.  After all that hard work I unwound by playing a couple hours of PS2.  Lisa's flight landed just after 7pm so she should be here real soon, it sounded like she was having a good time when we spoke earlier.  I'm sure it was nice to visit her parents, she doesn't get to see them all that often.  We've been watching the stats for the site lately, it seems like people actually read this stuff, quite a bit more than we thought too, that being said one would expect that these many people would drop us an email now an then by clicking the handy links on the left :)  Anyway, that's it for now, have a great week.