We arrived late Thursday night. Picked up some groceries and just went to bed. Friday was a perfect day though. We had a great breakfast and headed out to the water. We unloaded the jet skis and spent hours on the water. Saturday, Wes and I headed back to Lakeland for the Tea Party down by Lake Mirror. It was raining both at home and at the lake house so we didn’t miss out on much back at the lake. We did have a great time at the Tea Party. Check out what my buddy Jared wrote about that along with some pictures. By the time we got back to the lake it had finished raining. So we were able to go back outside and enjoy the day (and the jet skis) for a little while until the rain returned.

Sunday we were able to spend some time in the water again between the rain. Then we had to clean and get ready to come home. After stopping at Woody’s for dinner, we drove home. Today I’m just tired. I slept a ton last night but I still feel worn out. We had such a blast though. It was great to get away and to hang out with the Grimes.

Yesterday we had a bar-b-q with some friends from church. They were all great people and we had such a good time. I cooked way too many burgers and hotdogs so we were left with a “bucket o’ meat”. After we ate, we hung out and played games, Apples to Apples and Loaded Questions. Both games are always good for lots of fun and conversation. Just keep your eyes open for the game I’m inventing call “Giving Bears Babies”.

After church today we had a great lunch with a couple new friends we’ve made. I actually met the guy, Matthew, on Twitter. I’d seen an update where he mentioned that he was attending Access. So I started talking to him about it. They had only just started coming to Access a few months ago. We invited them to the bbq and made plans to do lunch today after church too. They were great people and it ended up that we knew a few of the same people. That’s almost bound to be the case though in this town. I think most young adults are connected by only one or maybe two degrees of separation.

Oh, one more thing, I’m having a giveaway over at Jet the Nerd. I need some help coming up with a good contest though. Please head over there and leave me your ideas.

We reached the 20 mile point and still felt pretty good. Until then, 20 miles was the longest I’d ever ridden (which was accomplished this past Monday). At about 22 miles we started to feel tired. The heat was rising and fatigue was showing it’s face. At 27 miles we knew we only had the equivilant to one more lap around Lake Hollingsworth. Finally at 28.5 miles I just went all out peddaling hard. I got up to about 20.5 mph. I wanted to see how long I could sustain it. I dropped back to about 17 mph for the last mile and finally we were done. 30 miles! We did it. I felt exhausted but great. Our average speed was right at 16 mph. I felt that was an accomplishment of it’s own, to average 16 mph over 30 miles. We came in just under 2 hours and not a moment too soon. By this time the heat was starting to pack a punch. We grabbed a couple Gatorades and headed back to Lakeland. Whew!

Now our goal is to be able to do the WHOLE thing, there and back, by the end of this year. I’d say that’s do-able, especially since about a year ago I was ready to throw up after riding 6 miles.

It was so nice to ride a little earlier. It was slightly cool and less humid. The sun was just starting to come up as we were riding. Although near the end of the ride it was getting hot and humid, it was definitely a good ride and a nice change from our usual ride.

It was as the sun was coming up that I had the best idea. I remember seeing the sun just as it came over the trees. One large part of the trail has a huge pasture to the east. The sun was just illuminating the grass and it was so refreshing. I thought, how awesome would it be if we had a digital ultra-high def camera in our eyes. You could see something like that and take a picture. Then you had an SD card slot in your head where you can store the pictures and then transfer them to your computer and share them with the world. Then this post would just be filled to the rim with great pictures from this mornings ride. But maybe I just need to learn how to paint pictures with my words.

In all it was a lot of fun though tiring and of course, great exercise.

I finally have an appointment with a dermatologist. I have a nasty mole on  my back that I’ve needed to get rid of for a long long time. So the day after my birthday, I will get it looked at. Yay.

Tomorrow I will be officially inducted into The Rotary Club. I’m pretty excited about this. I’ll have to write all about it later.

Friday I had the pleasure of working with my younger to mow my parents’ lawn. Apparently my dad has hurt himself. I think he was walking to the mailbox or something simple like that but his ankle is no longer able to support him in the regular-type fashion that us non-cripple people are so used to.  Once we finished there, I drove my gas-powered vehicle back to my own dwelling. Then I mowed my own yard (this includes edging, weed-eating…i didn’t really eat any weeds…and blowing off the driveway).

Friday evening we spent time with the family. It was lots of fun. We ate, played cards, watched fireworks and then said good-bye. My aunt Cindy brought my grandparents down from Tallahassee. I introduced them all to my lovely wife, since they were unable to make it down for our wedding last year (I’m kidding, they already met her).

Saturday we drove to Winter Garden and hung out with the Meitzler family. I probably misspelled their name but such is life when you have a crazy name. They are probably our best friends (aside from dryan but he lives way up in TN…so we don’t get to see him much anymore). Yeah so we grilled and had some fantastic burgers and doggers (yeah, I called em “doggers”…I’m aware that it’s a stupid name…don’t bother commenting on it.) Anyways, I brought my Nintendo Wii with me. Since my wife was so completely awesome and purchased Mario Kart for our anniversary, we had some MK tournaments. I must admit, I won every race…in my head…but in reality I pretty much lost most of the time. I blame it on the fact that they do not have a 40″ LCD widescreen tv. Just kidding.  Then we played “Loaded Questions” and got great laughs for hours until finally it was late.

Yesterday I must admit we did not attend our normal worship service. We cleaned (mostly Jess) and took care of the monthly bills. I had a client who I had to go see. We exercised. Jessica ran the lake. I bicycled with my buddy Jon. Then we went grocery shopping…wait, maybe we went shopping first, yeah we went shopping made dinner and then exercised. Then we sat and watched tv and relaxed before bed.

So much fun was had…but it never lasts long enough. Now I’m at work hoping to get out of here soon. Just gotta finish up a couple other things before the end of the day, so that’s it for now.

So I’m just chilling. No real reason to write other than just to post this picture. I’m thinking about how awesome this weekend is gonna be. Jess and I are gonna be staying in Anna Maria Island for our anniversary. We head out there tomorrow and then we’ll come home some time on Monday. I’m also excited because I have a 3 day weekend, then I come back and work 3 days, then I have another 3 day weekend. Sweet.

Just listening to a little Ryan Adams at the moment. Oh that’s over, now for some The Appleseed Cast. I haven’t done much work on my other two projects, Jet the Nerd dot com and florida insurance guy dot com. I do plan on spending more time on those in the coming weeks. Check em out if you haven’t already.

I’m using more social apps these days. Twitter, FriendFeed, Socialthing!, Brightkite, Twhirl (which is a Twitter and Friend Feed client). I signed up for Plurk today. Don’t think I’ll use it. It’s just another Twitter and I don’t really have any friends there. I wish more of my friends…wait…let me start over…I wish I had friends, and if I had friends, I wish they would all use Twitter and FriendFeed (maybe Brightkite too). My only friend who’s as nerdy about this stuff as I am (he actually gets me signed up on many of these) lives in Chattanooga. I’ll tell you what though, without these, I wouldn’t keep up with him much. I mean of course, we are both on AIM but you don’t always have time to chat. Speaking of AIM, I was thinking about my AIM screenname the other day. I probably set it about 10 years ago. I don’t even really listen to Jimmy Eat World anymore…haaa!

Well I’m gonna finish up cuz I have my Virtual Cup of Coffee with my Nerd buddies in a little bit. See ya.

Just to add, I have ONE invite left for Socialthing! if anyone is interested in trying it out. I also have 4 invites for Brightkite and (not sure how many) invites to Dropbox. Dropbox is REALLY awesome. You can sync files between computers and share files and folders with friends. I use it all the time since I have 3 computers that I use on a regular basis. Let me know if you are interested (friends and family only).

I had to go to Ft Meade in the morning. The DSL was being upgraded and it caused the IP address to change so they router had to be reconfigured with the new IP address. So the DSL guy was supposed to be there at 8am and I was gonna get there at 8:30am. I figured that would give him a chance to get his stuff done. Well, he didn’t bother showing up until 9! Then his stuff was all screwed up and he was on the phone for a couple hours trying to get it all sorted out. Long story short, no one had the password to the router. The router was a commercial grade router so it wasn’t something that could easily just be reset. I planned on being there until about 10 or 10:30…I left at around 2:30. On top of all that…the A/C in my car quit working! So I had the pleasure of sweating all the way back to Lakeland. I did get everything finished though, so that’s good.

My friend Nick got a bicycle and is going to start riding with Jon and I in the morning. He went out with us this morning. It’s pretty cool cuz I’ve known him for years and he and his wife bought a house recently just a couple streets down from us. I need friends so I’m glad to have a chance to hang out a little.

I’m glad that I’m having a relatively slow day so far at work. Friday’s are usually really slow until 3:30. I don’t know why but my phone always rings off the hook from 3:30 to 5 on Friday afternoon. I have to say, if you wait until late Friday afternoon to call me, NOTHING you say is going to be urgent to me. The cut-off for URGENT phone calls is probably about 1:30 on Friday. If you wait longer than that, it really isn’t very urgent, is it?