Well, it's certainly been busy times. 3 months, jeez, I'm boring. Here's the objective breakdown of my life:

  Moving to cheaper and unfurnished apartment with bret and Ryan, possibly as late as Aug 1.
  Jenn is living in Tally for summer, no job to speak of.
  I dropped my assistantship for summer since i have 2 classes and 2 internships, and I have Jenn and I want to take some time to get my mental health in order. I'll still do Night Staff in the Fall.
  Lots of summer projects, check the projects section, there's the dresser and the new Turtle Tank 3.0.
  I'm goin to CA for 4 days, 2 in Nor Call and 2 in So Cal. I'm actually on the plane while I write this and I'll post it some other time.
  Wedding planning, Jenn and I have picked some China out which you can see here. We also have some crystal chosen here and some fine silver chosen here. We also hope to look into a venue this weekend and have the guest list finalized.
  Exercise. Jenn and I are eating VERY healthy and working out every day, including running. Operation "get hot for the wedding" in full effect, but I feel that I'm getting healthier, it's a very good thing.

  Clearly, this is an insane time, I'm kind of doing better, the car is dead again but el warrantio is keeping it working for free. Taking housing off took it from impossible to hard, which is so much better. All in all, I may just make it to the end of this ride.

  X3 Rocked my socks off. I was so impressed, I practically peed myself. Beast is my hero. Kinsey is an awesome movie since I am him, Oceans 12 has the best cinematography and soundtrack I've ever seen, Tom Hanks is the best actor of our time, Tool and Avenged Sevenfold rock, South Park needs to stop just insulting other shows and be funny again, Monster House is off the air BOO, UFC kicks ass and I was the only person in the whole Hooters who knew Hughes was gonna win, MAN LAW, caaaaaalllll the poliiiiiiiiiiice, With a coat hanger next to the toilet, Ryan's Mom + Keith Forever, OH BOIEE!!!!!, eorrerrroerroerore, "Cause I'm the Juggernaut Bitch, I'll kill you rape you and eat your costume, I'll beat you Charles then I'll beat you with Charles", D Pitty's Hair Color, the vortex of weird, Ignant.

Focker, out.

  The civic died in Orlando and I pawned it off ona mechanic for the cost it took me to tow it from the side of the road the 50 miles. We caught a rental car back here to Tallahassee and I proceeded my search for a new car. After investigating several new SUV's and Vans and seeing just how tight I can squeeze my money belt, I found a 1995 Nissan Altima. It's in awesome condition, a guy in town left for grad school at UC Berkeley and couldn't take it anymore, he lived with his dad who is a professor here for the entire duration he had the car and the 2 of them shared it, so they made sure it worked well and had all it's maintenance. It is 11 years old, but it's in nicer shape than the civic was when I lost it. It had some paint scrapes, minor body wear, a few things on the inside needed some help, but with some minor mechanic power of my own I've made it very good. For a total of $2500 after tax, title, registration and a bunch of extras I have a nice new car.
  I also left the shit hole that was the exchange, to finally move into an apartment that's not a maintenance nightmare. But more on that later.

Here's the front of the new car. The front bumper has a bunch of crap caked onto it so I haven't fixed the paint yet. I'm gonna get it washed, then paint it, wash it again myself, then get the whole thing waxed.

When I got the car, it didn't have hubcaps, so a quick $40 fix and they're better. The stickers on the windshield won't come off, I haven't tried chemicals yet but that's not a big crisis. Notice where I fixed the paint on the side? Of course not 🙂

Other side of the car.

Back of the car, notice retractable antenna, the little hidden key slot behind the Nissan logo, and my new plate. There was some back bumper damage but it's almost invisible after the paint fix.

The trunk open.

The back seat doesn't fold down, but it has this neat little trap door for 2x4's, and for people in the back seat to sneak snacks in the trunk.

The inside of the drivers seat, the wire you see hanging is my ipod connection. Notice my floormats, my steering wheel cover, and my skull shift knob.

THe back seat, it's weird having 4 doors, when I go grocery shopping I have options for where to store things, and I can cart people around.

The passenger seat from the driver seat. Like the luxury wood finish?

Here's the center console, you can see there's cup holders in the glove box, and there's 2 more in the console, plus an ash tray and my stereo I installed. Also see the skull!

Ok, so I know it's silly, but his eyes light up red when you hit the button on the left, which is every time you shift. It helps make the car feel like mine, you know?

Dashboard, the mileage is wrong, and you can see I zero out the counter showing it doesn't work. One of the only things that doesn't work for real on the car.

To prove it's a manual, here's 3 pedals. I had to learn to drive it.

This pasta noodle is the engine.
  So, I have a new place with guys I know, and the rent is a whole bunch cheaper. I had to acquire furniture since this is unfurnished, but all in all it's a much better situation. Let's take a look:

Leaving the parking lot, you can see the building I live in. I'm around back, and you can see the path. Notice the fenced area on the right? That's the Pit of Despair, you'll see more of it later.

The path, those are the stairs up to my apt at the end. The Pit is to the left now.

So, this is our very own Pit of Despair. It's a 30 by 30 foot pit at about 5 feet deep. Maybe a drainage runoff, maybe they planned a swimming pool or something, but now all that's there is despair. We want to put a trampoline or a pirate ship there or something, I'll keep you posted.

Here's the bike I built, made from the parts of 9 broken bikes.

Looking up to the front door.

Here's the view once you get inside, with Bret sitting in front of the TV. His giant TV.

Just to the right of the entrance, there's also a fireplace and the door to my room back to the right. Ryan's futon is there in front, so is his extra monitor. The inflatable chair Meg gave me is there, but slowly deflating. Also, you can see the wireless router and cable modem up on the wall, away from anything that will block the signal.

More of the living room and entertainment center. You can also see the Baron's tank, he can see outside and watch TV, plus behind the recliner is the door to the patio. The guys kind of handed it over to me for workspace.

Looking out onto the patio, I made that workbench for $20, and it's solid as a rock.

Spare wood and bike parts.

Better view of the work bench, I like it a lot, plus a bunch of our collective tools, and my welding torch.

Back inside, the entertainment center. HD 37 inch plasma, 7.1 surround sound stereo, DVD player, HD TV with DVR and On Demand, plus an Xbox, PS2, PS1, Atari 2600, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Gamecube with Advance and Game Boy Color Player, Original Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Virtual Boy, Dreamcast, and finally we will soon get a Wii.

You can see the kitchen and the eating area, and the way back to the boy's bedroom. There's also the white stackers that make up our makeshift pantry.

View of the kitchen and the laundry room, not that glorious.

Ryan's turtle in the corner, it's a girl and about half the size of the Baron, but she's happy.

Here's the back hallway that leads to the boy's bedroom and to their bathroom, and our storage closet.

The Hallway.

Here's our storage closet, with all its junk. Maybe it could have been a pantry in a former life, but not now.

Here's the view of behind the futon, of the entrance door and to my room. And the fireplace, and our back 2 speakers.

Here's the way into my room.

The back of the entrance door, and the way into my bathroom.

The bathroom, my organizational thing, and some of my in room entertainment center.

Entertainment.

My closet, the start of the dresser.

My walk in closet, where my guitars are and stuff.

My dresser which we re did, and the window where I keep my books on the sill. Also, the start of my HUGE BED!

My lamp and bed.

Bed, underbed storage, nightstand, and chair.

DESK and ALL COMPUTERS!

Supercomputer and entrance door.

My bathroom, I just fixed the second towel rack. Also, my sink.

The behind the toilet thing, and the toilet.

The shower. Wow.

Finally, an analysis of my bed. I first got a bed for $70 from some international students, but it was nothing more than a 4 inch foam pad, I got ripped off. So when another queen sized bed came available, I got that for $30. I threw away the original box spring, used the original frame, put the new box on, put the new mattress on, then the foam pad, then the egg crate, then the pillow top, then the fitted sheet, with a stack of straps to keep it all together. All in all, it's the most comfortable bed ever made.

  Let's talk about how wonderful my apartment experience has been. Fuck Tallahassee housing. So, in case you don't know already, I'm moving to a new place with new people that will hopefully be better than el old Echang-o, and since this new place is unfurnished and my old place was furnished, I've been in a mad dash to acquire furniture. In addition, since Jenn and I are getting married and all and will be moving in together, we're thinking of getting things cheap now that we can use when we're together. Hence, the dresser.
  I saw an ad for this dresser on Craigslist for 50 bucks. Jenn and I were looking for something low with a mirror for when we're together, and this fit the bill perfectly. Also, since we like to do projects, we thought we'd do one of our first real Trading Spaces-ish project together with this.
  The original piece is particle board with white laminant, not a good formica laminant but glorified sticker paper that was clearly wearing through. My mouse sander tried to take off as much as it could but the age of the sticky crap just made it gum up all my sanding pads. We gambled if the paint we got would stick to a roughed up surface over a completely bare surface and did the best we can, leaving a lot of white laminant on the piece. The paint we used was a Kilz acrylic-latex paint from Wal-Mart, simply since it was the cheapest we could get ($7 a bucket custom mixed). We got one Black and one "Black Cherry" after seeing that the Fleur De Lis I got for my walls looked pink when it dried against the black on a sample piece. We didn't actually get to see how it would dry when we bought it and thought it would be too dark, and honestly almost bought a lighter one, but when you see the finished product I think you'll agree we chose the right color. We also bought some wood putty and a wood grainer (about $5 together, though I don't count them in the cost since I'll keep and reuse them). Jenn bought the 6 hardware pieces for $3 each, and we bought 2 2x4 pieces of 1/8 hardboard to replace literally the cardboard stapled to the back of this thing ($4 each). So far, we're at $90.
  The plan was to fill the old drawer pull holes, lay the black down first in a good coat, let it dry, then grain the wood over it. The wood graining tool works by laying paint in different patterns as you rock it as you drag it across your piece. Long story short, as soon as the rubber graining tool touched the latex paint it started scraping it off the leftover laminant of the original wood. After destroying the counter top and 3 drawers, we realized we'd have to go back and re-sand.
  We went to Home Depot and rented a belt sander and got 2 belts for about $30 for 4 hours and took it home, thinking I'd be done in about an hour. Not so much, as soon as it touched the dresser everything just became a gummy mess in about 1/2 a second. We almost decided to scrap the project, but I am to bull headed and determined to succeed so I used the gummy belts to literally friction all of the paint and laminant off. I was a mess, the outside of my apt was a mess, and the only thing that looked good was the dresser. I'm surprised the cops didn't get called, this belt sander was as loud as 4 shop vacs and I did it in front of my front door at my complex for 2 hours. OOPS! What helped was using a putty knife to peel off as much of the black paint as we could, and the good thing we noticed is that the rounded edges of the drawers (where all the laminant had originally been sanded off) were keeping the paint well.
  So we returned the sander and painted it black again. Once it dried, it finally took the overcoat! 1 night later and it was as good as wood. Jenn left for CA and I poly'd it 3 times before Rachel came home, drilled and installed the hardware, and put it back out of the way. After the belt sander, this project cost about $120, which I don't think is bad, I bet I could now sell it for that much on craigslist. For the low cost and the amount of fun, I'd say this was well worth the result.

The dresser in its original condition, note the mismatched hardware and corner damage. The base piece also sticks out the sides a lot, I sanded it flush.


The inside of a drawer, they're not huge but then again we don't have a lot of stuff, and Jenn has an upright dfresser as well.


More countertop and drawer.


Side view, notice the bottom board sticking out and the corner damage.


The mirror which attaches to the back, sorry you have to see my fat legs but you still need to see this piece.


After the belt sanding incident, we reblacked it and applied the paint. Here you can see an intermediate step, and you can see the color before the polyurethane goes on. Neat photos.


You can see through to where I hammered the hardboard to the back, much better than crappy cardboard like it came with if you ask me.


Like how that comes out like wood grain? Great technique, easy to do.

Poly on the drawers, what a huge mess in my apartment!

Finished dresser, with hardware on, if you notice it when you walk in it really, really looks like stained wood!

On March 9, 2006, on the steps of the Capitol of the United States in Washington DC, I asked a beautiful woman who I have spend the last 4 and a half years with to be my wife, and she accepted. To see the ring, go here.

In a much less exciting note, I'm working on a new version of the Surfrock66 Arcade. Check it out here or just click on the button "Games" above.

First off, none of you know this page exists. It must be kept that way.

When we walked into the Zales store in Destin, I confronted what had been the head of a long conflict. Jenn and other parties had been pressuring me for a long time to propose, and other people had been pressuring me to wait. Without naming names (because I honestly don't remember) it seemed like everyone I knew was on one side or another. To me, the decision stopped being about what I wanted for my life and the person I wanted to be with but about which group I wanted to appease, so I shut the topic down in a firey explosion. Now, finally, I've had time to contact my own emotions and decide things for myself, and this is the decision I have made. This is the woman I love and I am ready to commit to her for the rest of my life.

I didn't want Jenn to have seen the ring I had given her, which is why the Zales outlet was such a good choice. Small Tally jewelers would suck to get maintenance done if we move, and at mainstream chains she's seen all the online rings and it wouldn't be a surprise since she's already formed opinions on all of them. The outlet has old models with nothing wrong with them, they just aren't online and taking up valuable space in small mall stores. When we walked into the store, this ring immediately stuck out. It was close to the one she used to like, only without the wide band and with less contour to the wedding band (good thing). We asked to look at it, and I was instantly sold. On top of that, it was even her size, no maintenance needed! It was this point I had a mini panic attack and we decided to walk away. Not that I was second guessing my decision or anything, it's just that in about 2 minutes I had all of a sudden with little analysis I was about to committ to something larger than anything I've committed to in a long time. I'm not good with impulse decisions, and I couldn't believe that this had fallen into place so fast. If you know me, you know I like to mull over big decisions for months. We shopped for about an hour, and in that hour I realized that it wasn't an impulse decision at all, but the reason it happened so quickly was that it was the right decision. So I went back to the store, pointed to it and lo and behold, the price was more right than I ever imagined. It fit on my debit card, and it's all paid off with my savings, I didn't even need to dip into student loan money (which I was prepared to do). In less than 10 minutes total in the store, I became a wedding ring owner; the owner of the perfect ring with all the right perfect qualities at a more than perfect finalcial situation. Wow.

Here's all the stuff they gave me with it.

The ring, band, and box it came in.

Close up of the rings together in the box, with mints I'll have to use for my first engaged kiss in the background.

The ring. Wow, that's it, the ring. The one she'll wear forever.

The side of it. It's not flimsy like a lot of the ones I didn't like, it's solid and won't bend.

I know this can be interpreted as a past present future ring, but I don't see it as that. The one she liked before this had a central stone with three framing diamonds in a triangle on either side, these are just 2 framing medium diamonds. The other one pinched a lot more after the three, and this one is a more gradual taper, I like it.

I LOVE the etching on the edges, that's the detail I required and this had it. It's totally the difference between a nice ring and a ring that sparkles from every single angle you could possibly look at it. When you see this ring, it's as if the finger it's on is illuminated.

The wedding band, see the slight contour?

More contour with the interlocking on top, I love it since it's a half round of the same style, once again just grabs every eye in the room.

Where the rings lock together.

And that's it, wish me luck come this summer when I plan to propose!