The other night I opened an email from a friend asking me to join Reunion *dot* *com*.  I usually ignore things like this since I already have accounts at other similar social networking sites.  I don't know whether I was just caught up in my emotional high state after the Spurs beat the Hornets earlier that night and wasn't paying attention or what, but for some reason I decided to open it and sign up!  Why not!  I figured I might be able to find some long lost friends along the way, so I signed up.  Then I saw something about paying for a monthly membership and quickly lost interest.  I was halfway paying attention and saw a screen that asked for my Google account info which I figured was just a way of linking my account so I didn't have to enter it again.  Well about halfway through the page load after submitting, I quickly realized what was happening and as fast as I could I clicked on a link to skip that step.  What had happened was that the site sent an invitation to every single contact in my address book!  Crap!!!

So, to those of my readers who received an invitation from me, kindly disregard it unless you want to add me as a friend to a service I am sure to never use again in my life. 

To the following, please accept my apology:

• City of Austin Water Services 
• mortgage company customer service
• guy I used to work with 8 years ago
• my pastor
• home owners association members
• people who I turned down job offers from
• Microsoft SQL Server google group unsubscribe administrator
• Dell tech support person
• thermostat manufacturer tech support person

If I missed anyone, then consider this my apology and request to disregard the message...unless of course you want to add me as a friend!  That would be swell! 

I'll get to blogging regularly again. It just has not been a priority of mine lately. I apologize for any inconvenience or let down this has caused.

Seriously, I feel like I've been incredibly busy or just have not made it a priority. I've been blog-selfish too, in that I've been keeping up with all of the blogs I subscribe to but admitedly have not been adding to the mix.

Here's a quick list of what's been going on with B-Dub over the past couple of months:
- Getting ready for our Sudan mission trip in August
- Playing with our new pup Marley
- Meeting my newest nephew!
- Enjoying my new job
- Trying to keep up with yard work
- A couple of fishing trips to the coast
- Some good times with friends
- Seeing my life-long friend move to another city
- Attending a basketball officials camp
- Not working out enough and eating too much
- Not blogging

The fishing trip was a good time but we didn't catch any keepers.  I caught 11 fish over the day and a half that we got to fish.  The cool thing about that is the variety of fish I caught.  That is something you don't get necessarily fishing in fresh water.  I caught mostly trout, a couple of red fish, a flounder, some fish I couldn't identify that had spots and a lizard-like mouth, and even a blue crab!

The funny thing that happened was Friday night.  We fished until dark and started to load up the truck.  Dad had started the truck and we had both kayaks loaded up and most of our stuff put in the back.  Well, we soon realized that with the truck running and the lights on, the keys were inside the truck!  It was completely pitch black and we were nowhere near any other people or places with people.  I tried not to panic but my dad seemed to get pretty worked up.  I guess that's understandable given the situation.  We looked around hoping to see that some of the closeby fishers were still around but they had all taken off for the day.  There was one truck that pulled up within 100 yards and all we could see were its lights.  Dad decided to go and ask for help (mainly to borrow a phone) so he headed over while I stayed with the stuff.  He walked over and came upon some redneck moron taking a leak.  My dad asked if he had a phone he could borrow.  The guy said something like "No.  Who would you call if I did."  My dad said he wasn't exactly sure but probably a locksmith.  The guy paused, finished his leak and said, "well, it looks like you're on your own."  My dad simply said "thanks anway" and walked off (pissed off - pun intended.)

So we walked down the highway.  Luckily I had a flashlight to waive so cars could see us and not hit us.  We did not want to waive any cars down however.  We're smarter than that and not that desparate at this point.  Well, to make this story a little shorter we walked a half mile up the road and by the grace of God, there was one lady still at the bait store that was already closed.  She was super nice and let us use her phone to call the locksmith.  The locksmith came and picked us up 30 minutes later and got the truck unlocked in seconds.  I've got to get one of those things I thought to myself watching him break in.  That only cost $40 suprisingly. 

Well, the whole ordeal was worth it because Dad took me to the best Tex-Mex place I think I've ever been to.  Los Camales had the best verde chicken enchiladas with avocado on top as well as the best cheese enchiladas I have ever had.  Period.  Ole.  Bueno.  Gracias.  Adios.

Hello.  I've really fallen behind on blogging lately, because most of my "free" time has been spent either working on work stuff or working on my yard.  The yard stuff has been fun but a lot of work and $.  It gives me a good "man outlet." 

There have been quite a few highlights of the last few weeks.  For the sake of time, I will hit them in a spectacular bulleted list!

• Went canoeing with a group of college guys from Echo at the Guadalupe river
• Went camping/mt. biking/kayaking with guys from my small group.  We went to the Ouachita River close to Hot Springs, Arkansas and had a great time on our "man-sized adventure."
• Jan and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary.  It's hard to believe we've been married 3 years already!  It's been amazing and we are looking forward to the next one plus 30 years to come.
• Kicked my butt working on revitalizing my lawn.  Planted some new flowers/plants/shrubs in the backyard.
• My car broke down on me last week in the Lowe's parking lot which resulted in more $ to be spent.  The Maxima is getting close to 100,000 miles so it's to be expected to have to fork over some dough for it from time to time.  It's been a great car over the past 6 years, and I know it will continue to be so over the next 4.
• Spent a week in San Antonio for ESRI GIS training.  I got to see my grandmother and my aunt while I was there, as well as my good buddy Eric Smith from high school and his wife Natalie.  Good times.
• Did my taxes (almost done.)  I hate taxes. 
• Watched Bodie grow to a whopping 26.8 pounds!  I need to post a picture of him soon so you can see how much he has grown since we got him.

I'm looking forward to getting back on a normal schedule soon! 

Listening to Neko Case

Reading Kyle Lake - re:Understanding Prayer

Well, some of you know that I resigned from my job at Systems Evolution recently.  I started a new job at Contact One, Inc. as a GIS Software Developer.  Without going into the details behind all of that (there are several), I wanted to give a quick re-cap of how I spent last week since I took the week off before starting my new job. 

Leading up to my week off, I had imagined doing a lot of things.  I made a to-do list of things I wanted to accomplish and also left plenty of time open.  I soon realized that my newly found leisure time was just that...leisure, and I found myself not motivated to do all of the things on my original to-do list.  I didn't sleep in any but I didn't do too much before noon most days.  I played a lot with Bodie which allowed us to bond. 

Monday:  Hmmm...don't remember much about that day.  That must have been my day to hit the proverbial "reset" button.

Tuesday:  I was able to take my niece Morgan to go and see Curious George on Tuesday.  This is not something I'd normally get to do so I was sure to take advantage of some uncle time. 

Wednesday:  Michael and I went out for a boat ride on Lake Austin.  We took off from Westlake Beach and headed to Ski Shores where we partook of a border burger and a beer or two.  (if you've never been to Ski Shores, GO!)  After lunch, we drove up to Mansfield Dam to check it out.  We then headed back and within a couple of minutes the boat stalled out and we ran out of gas!  I might have to blog about that separately sometime, because we ended up running out of gas twice!  We had a good time despite all of that though.  I went to the Mat Kearney concert with Jan and met up with Chance on Wednesday. 

Thursday: I finally got away for a while and spent some time hiking at Pedernales State Park.  This was my "mini personal retreat" as I was just able to spend some time praying, journaling, taking an afternoon nap on an 80 degree day, and basically enjoying God's beautiful creation.

Friday:  I was going to see my grandmother in San Antonio but she was not feeling well.  So intstead, I ventured over to the outlet mall in San Marcos and looked at some furniture and other things that I didn't buy.  That day, the 24 hour temperature change went from 83 to 23!  Gotta love living in Texas!

Saturday:  Rob and I drove up to Waco and met up with Adam and went to the Baylor vs. ATM game.  It was a good game overall but the Bears lost by 4.  They definitely had their chances to win but couldn't put it together.  That night, we went and had some good hot Tex-Mex with our friends Peter and Brandis.

Sunday:  Went to church and Axiom.  That night we got to hook up with Pete and Jamie, Ben Burch, and the Perkinses at South Congress Cafe.  They came over briefly afterwards to see the house and meet Bodie.  It was good to see them and hopefully we'll get to spend more significant time with them when we hopefully go and see them later this spring.

Well, that's my week in review for those of you who care.  Sorry to bore you with all mundane details but I know I had told many of you that I was planning on doing a number of things...so, that's it!  Back to the working world now!

Listening to Jack Johnson & Friends, Curious George soundtrack.

Hello.  It's been a while.  Too while!  We have settle into our new home and have gotten to the point where we can actually park one car in the garage.  This was a big step to feeling settled.  We've been able to unpack everything for the most part but we still have a lot to do.  We don't have anything up on the walls yet, for instance.  But that stuff will come together over time.  We just have to be patient and not try to do everything overnight.  I do have to tell you guys that I bought a vaccuum cleaner online a couple of weeks ago and I'm not ashamed to tell you that it is SWEET!  Since our entire downstairs is tile and I do the vaccuuming, I decided I needed something that worked well so I bought the Electrolux Pronto 2-in-1.  When I opened up the box and put it together my immediate word for it was...sexy.  Yes, I think a vaccuum cleaner is sexy.  No apologies.

What else has B-Dub been up to?  Well, besides talking in the 3rd person I've been working a lot.  In more fun news, I went and saw Ben Folds in concert at UT a few weeks ago with my friend Travis.  He put on an incredible show and I knew well over half of the songs which made it that much more enjoyable.  I've never seen a dude so effortlessly tear up a piano!  At one point, he had the crowd divided into the three groups and had us singing 3-part harmony!  Incredible.

Music - I've expanded my music tastes a bit thanks to Chris.  He let me borrow his Arcade Fire and Built to Spill cd's.  I have not had much of a chance to listen to BTS yet, but Arcade Fire is really cool.  They have this David Bowie-esque sound with really nice beats and swells in their music.  No wonder Coldplay was going on and on about them at their ACL performance.  Too bad I missed them!  I've also been listening to the latest David Crowder Band cd.  I love it.  It is different from their others; it is more experimental which makes it good.  I really felt some of its lyrics were timely with Kyle's passing in October.  Check it out on iTunes if you get a chance.

Headed to the UT basketball game this afternoon with our dads.  Let's see if they perform a bit better than last week's 31-point blowout against Duke.  I hate freakin' Duke!  But, I respect them.  You've got to I guess, because they are consistently good and they normally don't have many punks on their teams.  Well, maybe they do...

Crazier things have happened I suppose, but I wanted to share my excitement for my good buddy Gannon Sims for getting engaged!  He's marrying a great named Carrey who he met out in DC/Alexandria.  Here's to Gannon...can I get a boo?

So, the local Oak Hill Gazette sent us a free copy of their publication last month and this was on the front page...the FRONT PAGE!!  I guess if it's news worthy then the Oak Hill Gazette is there!  Be sure to check out the highlighted quote.  Why they chose that one over all the others, no one can be sure.  But, I'm sure glad they did.  Hilarious.

 

It's been two weeks since my last post and I admit that I have fallen behind in the blogging department.  The main occupier of my...that word doesn't look right...anyway, I've been working a ton of overtime the last three weeks.  The first couple of weeks weren't bad but this week is proving to be a long and exhausting one.  We are just trying to make up some time in the project schedule so we are putting in the extra hours.  I think after this week we will be close to being caught up and all will return to normal in Brandon's world.  Jan too has been working a lot mainly because she's got some proposals that are due in the next few weeks. 

I went to Hill's Cafe tonight to meet up with my dad.  I surprised by showing up because I had told him I had to work.  Well, I decided to stop by after work to see him anyway and to see Ricky Trevino perform live.  Now, I am pretty picky with the kind of country music I like, and I have to say that I definitely enjoy his music.  He plays a lot of stuff that sounds like the Mavericks, Marty Robbins, and a bit of Tex-Mex flavor to it.  He had 10 people on stage with him and they all combined to make some really good music.  He had a sax, trumpet, steel guitar, accordian, drums, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, piano, and a bass somewhere in there.  Sounds crowded don't it?  Check him out if you ever get a chance.  I know a lot of you aren't big country fans but he's really a good musician.

Easter last Sunday was a lot of fun and a first for Jan and me.  We hosted my whole family for Easter dinner and it turned out to be a great success.  I slaved over a spiral sliced ham from HEB and everyone else brought the sides.  I'm telling you - pot luck is the way to go.  It was great to see my grandmother whose birthday we celebrated.  Jan made an incredible carrot cake with her mother's recipe.  Dang, baby, that thing was goo-ood!! 

On Friday, Jan and I went to see The Passion - on Good Friday.  It was definitely well-done, but outside of critiquing it I was really moved by a few of the scenes.  It truly is a movie that we all need to watch periodically if not more frequently to remind us of what Christ did for us.  It doesn't even come close to what actually occurred only because we weren't there, but it is the closest thing we have and I am thankful that Mel Gibson and his crew made the movie. 

Well, I'm off to bed.  I hope to blog more often and will try to keep it interesting.  I gotsta keep the peepul comin back for mo'.

 

Haddy, and Merry Belated Christmas!  (I need to play catch up so forgive me for the length...)

Jan and I went to Wimberley for a couple of days to be with my family for Christmas.  It was a great time and hectic as it always is with the Wilson clan.  We are always on the move and usually there's about three to four different sects doing different things.  Luckily, the stablizer this year was my niece Morgan who is 1 and a half.  It's so nice to have her around to take the focus off of me (I was the youngest for 25 years until she hit the map.)  So, now instead of people asking me to say any word they can think of they would ask her instead, which is of course extremely cute.  It was really nice to have everyone there with us:  Mamie and Papaw (whose health has been poor lately), Aunt Pam, Mom, Dad, me, Jan, my sister Jana, bro-in-law Michael, and Morgan (not to mention a total of 4 dogs; some residents, some visiting.)  It made for a full household, but at least I didn't have to sleep under the dining room table like last year.

We also got together with Jan's parents on Christmas night to exchange gifts and to watch "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days."  That's actually not a bad movie.  I've seen it three times.  It is rare that I see a movie more than once, but one day I needed to cheer Jan up so I bought her a copy of this movie.  I made sure that it was one that I could watch multiple times if I had to.  That is why I did not by any J-Lo movies. 

Jan's parents are strongly thinking about moving to Austin and retiring at the end of the school year.  We are very excited about this possibility.  We went looking at some houses with them the other day which was exciting too and it made me wish we were loaded so we could buy a new house and rent out our current place.  Patience, Brandon.  Patience.

In the past week, we watched all three Lord of the Rings episodes.  Saw Return of the King last night/this morning and absolutely loved it!  It is kind of sad that the series is over, but there is talk that Jackson could do The Hobbit sometime in the future. 

So, Jan's mom sent her this email the other day...read it below...it is quite crazy...

Hi Guys,

Hope your day is going well.  Last night I was setting the VCR to record some shows when I heard a loud crash.  I could not figure out what it was so I went outside to check it out.  I walked around the side of the house where the air conditioning unit is located.  To my surprise, the unit had been knocked off of its concrete base and away from its connections.  I could not figure out what had happened.  As I walked back around to the garage, a guy came flying thru the alley on a 4-wheeler and I thought then that maybe he had decided to fly through our side yard and jump off that little hill.  So, I went back to look to see if there were tire marks in the grass.  As I walked toward the front yard, I looked up to see a steer staring at me with horns about 8 inches long.  Freaked me out!  I thought it was going to charge me so I backed up.  It moved into the next yard.  I walked out carefully to see what the deal was.  As I reached the front yard, I saw about 8 emergency vehicles in the neighborhood with the flashers going.  They were from the sheriff's department and they were trying to catch the steer. 

I discovered on my way to HHP that a cattle truck had wrecked with about 36 cows - 4 were killed right away and others shot by the men trying to catch them.  A small truck caused the cattle truck to turn over on I-27 right before the exit to Western.  What a mess!  You can read about it in today's Globe news.

Interesting huh!

Love,

Mom

So, sometimes I will drive me car over to the mall parking lot that has the sweetest panaramic view of downtown and eat my lunch over there.  Well, yesterday I did this and was enjoying a peaceful sunny afternoon while sitting in the comfort of my car enjoying a recently heated Marie Callendar's frozen dinner, when out of nowhere this car comes screaming by within 15 feet of me and I see this wad of trash fly out in an attempt to land in the trash can on the hill side.  They missed.  I thought to myself, "are you kidding me?"  Actually I said that aloud.  Anywho, not a minute later the same car comes screeching by again and wouldn't you know it two more wads of trash fly out.  They missed again.  At this point, I wanted to start taunting them because they really had bad aim.  But, instead I kept listening to Paul Harvey on the radio and eating my chunky chicken noodles. 

Fast forward 5 minutes...the car has returned.  I can see them in my side mirror.  It was parked behind me and now I'm kind of starting to worry.  I thought I was going to have use some ninja action on their behinds.  One guy gets out of the car carrying what appears to be a white cafeteria tray.  He begins to lodge it under the back tire of his friend's car.  Interesting.  He gets back in and the teenage driver starts to drive and before you know it there is a huge white dust could of cafteria tray particles trailing them in the air.  They thought this was cute so they get out and put one on the other back tire.  Now, their goal was to peel out and create parrallel white lines on the parking lot.  I guess they succeeded.  Meanwhile, I guess I "ate their dust" because it was quickly headed in my direction. 

The point of this story is that white cafteria trays smell really bad when mixed with asphalt.