So, Friday I had a hankerin’ for some pancakes. I asked the cook to go to the store and buy some pancake mix and make’em on Saturday with some bacon and eggs. The store was out on Friday and Saturday was sanitation day which means nobody can be on the streets until 10:30am. So, he went back Saturday morning and got the stuff but by the time he returned the moment was gone. It was too late. No pancakes for me on Saturday.
I woke up this morning at my usual time, 5:30am, talked to MBM for a while and then decided to attempt my own pancakes (the cook has Sundays off). The result is below. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. The pancakes are just regular old pancakes. For the eggs I chopped up a FRESH clove of garlic, threw in some salt & pepper, and a little bit of cheese. Cheesy garleggs and pancakes.
Since it’s Sunday, the day of rest, I plan on doing as little as possible. I’m still on my push up quest and still trying to run as often as possible. I did a measly 2mi run yesterday, but I did a whopping 72 push ups on Friday! This Tuesday is my two week test to see how many I can do consecutively. Should be interesting.
That’s all I have for today. If you haven’t seen the Halloween pics MBM put up make sure to scroll down and check them out.
Ok, so I’m back home and we’ve been busy. Very busy. Extremely busy.
The day I landed we had to hit HEB to grab some groceries since all of our food was lost during the hurricane. We didn’t have power at the house for about 4 days so the stuff that didn’t get taken and used by our friends had to go to the dump. HEB was the only store in the vicinity that had grub.
Sunday we went to church.
The kids finally went back to school today. They were out for more than a week. We noticed that we did get some water damage in our kitchen on our lovely hardwood floors. Gotta get the insurance folks involved in this one. We’ve cancelled our Comcast high-speed internet service and cable since they are awful. The internet only works when it wants to and it gets really old when your 6,300mi away and trying to talk to your wife and her internet keeps going out. So, AT&T will be out this Thursday to hook us up with better internet and cable. Hopefully better. We got free installation and all that jazz and the monthly charge is about the same for more services. Comcast bites.
I also switched our home phone service from Comcast (they bite) to a VOIP line from Vonage. It’s only $25/mth and we get unlimited local and long-distance calling to anywhere in the USA and some other places we’ll never call.
Then I got a quote on a fence to keep Rocky contained. It’s not cheap. Hopefully I’ll get that done before I leave again.
Today we went to IKEA to get furniture for the boys room since they have virtually no place to put their clothes and toys. We walked out of there with two dressers, one big multi-drawer thingy for their toys, and a couple of cool lockers for their room. Now I have to put them all together! That’s not the worst part though. The worst part is that IKEA had no air-conditioning so we had to shop in the 90deg heat. I was not happy. Not only that, the store is laid out in such a way you have to walk down every single aisle to get to the check-out counters. EVERY SINGLE AISLE and the place is huge. The prices might be right but the layout pretty much stinks when there is no A/C. I understand their selling tactics but I don’t like’em.
Gabby is being Gabby. Pretty and prissy and happy more often than not. I’ve taken a few new pics that I’ll put up on her site tomorrow (hopefully). In the meantime, you can see a silly video I took by clicking here.
I found a tiny little snake outside last night. Picture below.
Carolina is at her latest cake-making class at Lonestar College. The class was supposed to begin at 6pm and the instructor is nowhere to be found. It’s now 6:21pm. There are other people there waiting with her so she has the right day, time, and class location. Lonestar College bites too!
And… We’ve started our running routine again. We ran last Friday and today and plan on running 4 days a week for 3 to 4mi per day. Hopefully I’ll get it back up to 5 or 6mi again soon. I need it.
O’yea, the boys have also started back with Karate and Savannah is rehearsing for her play after school. The play will run from Oct. 15 - 20. Expect video of that when the time comes. I’m hoping to embarass her royally when she gets on stage.
Ok, baby momma is away so baby daddy has to go scrounge something up for din-din. Poor children don’t know what they’re in for with my cooking!
We’ll start posting regularly again… Assuming we can find time!
So, it’s that time of year again. Kari is one year closer to being ancient and I get to put up all these wonderful pictures that make us all laugh hysterically. You should all go to the Many Faces of Kari Manthei photoset on Flickr and post a comment below the picture of what Kari was thinking when the picture was taken.
For instance…
The Evil Stare of Death
Whew! That Was A Stinker!
So, go have a laugh at Kari’s expense. Leave some comments under the pictures. Oh, and HAVE A HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY MUCH OLDER THAN ME SEESTA!
So, I pulled out my camera the night before last to make sure it was charged. I haven’t touched it since I got here which is rather strange. Anyway, the batteries were dead. I charged it over night and then headed out the next day to the mud plants. On the way there I turned it on to make sure everything was in working order and I found a bunch of pictures and video from the trip Justin & I took to the Houston Aquarium. We went the day before I left to come back to Nigeria and I never downloaded them.
I made the video below using the brand-spankin’ new version of Picasa from Google. I’m a big Picasa fan. You should all go download it now. It’s free. It works great. It’s the software that should have come with your camera in the first place.
Anyway, check out the video below. It’s a combination of the pictures and video. However, the pictures and captions are too small so go to the the Houston Aquarium Gallery to see the full-size version of the pics. Oh, and stay tuned for the entire video because there are a couple of them that are pretty cool.
So, one year ago today I started my gig as #2 in Port Harcourt. I’ve officially been here one year. Or half a year since that’s all I work. Either way, I made it a year. The job is easier now that I have some sense of what I’m doing. That doesn’t make it or the people any less frustrating though. Oh, and the boss is away again for the next two weeks so #2 moves to the #1 spot. Now all I need is #1 pay and I’m happy. Anyway, as I always say… Nothing has changed. It’s the same Port Harcourt as it was one year ago. Definitely no better, but not worse either.
One thing I don’t remember from this time last year is all of this rain. It’s the rainy season and there have only been two dry days since I’ve been here. Most of the time it is fine during the day, but around 5:30pm or 6:00pm the rain starts. Right around the time I get home. Right around the time I’m supposed to run. I guess I should dust off that old jump rope that’s been sitting in my dresser drawer for the last year and give it a spin.
In other news, a hurricane is about to obliterate the Louisiana Gulf Coast again, MBM and crew are back in Wichita Falls, Weezer is back on Oklahoma City, & Kari and crew are moved into their new giant abode. Maybe not moved in, but they’re sleeping there.
That’s about all the time I have. Now it’s off to work. I’ll leave you with a slideshow of some of the pictures I’ve taken here over the last year or so.
And don’t forget about little Gabby next door. She’s having self-esteem issues with the lack of participation over at her corner of the internets. One comment each on the last two posts? Y’all are slippin’.
**EDIT** It looks like my slideshow is acting up. Hopefully it will start working later in the day.
****EDIT**** I’ve given up on the slideshow. I can’t even get the link to the gallery to work. Maybe next time.
Who needs Snakes on the Plane when you have snakes at the library?
The pictures, found here, and the video below were taken at the Harris County Public Library when we went to see a real-live snake wrangler. Justin was sure he would be from Australia, but it turns out he was from Texas and sounded a lot like Jeff Foxworthy and not Steve Irwin.
So, check out the pics and video below to see MBM and Justin playing interacting with the slithery creatures.
So Gabe, how was your run tonight? Why it was great! It was probably one of the best runs I’ve had this year. I did 4.5mi without stopping at a 10min/mi pace. It’s a far cry from the sub 9min/mi I used to do but it’s a step in the right direction. The weather was cooler thanks to the crazy downpour we had all day and my iPod even cooperated for most of the run. I only had to reset it and start over once just after the halfway point. So, I guess I did stop for a few seconds technically, but only to do the rest.
Anyway, when I was running I spotted a gargantuan snail crawling up the wall and I was going to take a picture of him (or her) to use as todays POTD. It was there the first lap and it was there 45min later when I finished. Of course during the 3min it took me to go upstairs, check my messages, grab my camera, and get back to the snail location it was gone. Not only was it gone, but all of its’ siblings had disappeared too. They weren’t quite as large, but they were larger than what I’m used to seeing back home.
I then went in search of the man-eating rats. I came up with zilch on those too. So, all I had left to take pictures of was my running route and my reward at the end. There are two things on my reward plate that did not get consumed… They went straight to the trash. Care to guess what they were? I know, there are starving people in the world and blah blah blah and I shouldn’t waste good food and blah blah blah but I’m back on the Gabe Little diet and two of those items just ain’t on the menu.
Speaking of Gabe Little, I canceled the original Gabelittle.com & Carolinalittle.com last night but decided to keep the domain names. I then forwarded them to the location I copied all the files too which means you can still go to Gabelittle.com & Carolinalittle.com and see all the old stuff. However, my site shows zero comments on all of my posts. Do not fret dear readers, the comments are still there they just aren’t counted for some strange reason.
So, that’s all I got. Enjoy the pics.
NOTE: Don’t forget to scroll down and see snaggle-tooth and MBM’s pictures too!
NOTENOTE: The pics are really small in the slideshow so you’ll probably want to see the larger version at my Picasa Web Album page. Click any picture during the slideshow to go there.
O.k. this is not my first time trying to make this Wilton Cupcake Cake. It was a DISASTER the first time I made it for Savannah’s Sweet 16. However, thanks to the lessons learned and advice from the internet and my MIL, I was able to make my friend’s daughter a cute cake, a milestone cake to boot! Here it is!
O.k., so here is the link to yet more pictures of Justin and his summertime antics. He has been my shadow since school has been out. We will soon be dumping Savannah off next weekend to go cavorting the country with her other momma, Angie, and meeting up with the ever elusive James (who started his vacation asap). Justin and I have Scout Camp next week and are Houston bound for a while. That is just more pool time for us!
