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.

When I’ve done a white elephant gift exchange, you open a gift and then either keep it or trade it with someone else’s gift. Well the rules last night were, you either take someone’s gift (and they go get another one) or you get to open a new one. If you open a new one, you’re stuck with it, unless someone else comes along and takes it from you later (which doesn’t happen when you have nail polish). I’m not saying anyone was wrong, I’m just saying I’ve never seen it done that way.(Although Wikipedia says I’m wrong…but since when is Wikipedia right?) Oh Well.

The gift I brought was completely under-appreciated though. I mean who doesn’t want a light bulb that you can stick anywhere. Put in your car and have a super rad dome light. Or put it on your head and look really smart. How book is that? I wanted to say to the guy, “hey, you could have gotten nail polish. Don’t be so ungrateful.” (please understand I’m totally joking around about all this) It was all good fun.

I just wanted to share that with the world.

This morning they had a fantastic little segment on, well…let me just show you.

Regifting Rules

I just thought I’d share that with you.

Hey, I also wrote a little blurb about my new mobile phone. Check it out over at Jet the nerd. It’s the T-Mobile G1 or the “google phone” as some people call it.

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.

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).