My name is Pete.  Welcome to my blog.  July has been quite busy.  It all started when Jason came out from the east coast back on July 2nd.  He came to visit his girlfriend out here, and Clinton took advantage of his presence to shoot a video.  We all met up at the Siebers (including Doug and Jeff and Lindsay) and started shooting.  Clinton rented a Panasonic DVX-100, which is an awesome camera that Mark can tell you all about.  I called Mark and got a plethora of operational advice.  We shot a few scenes and learned how to use the camera as we went along.  It really is amazing how good this camera makes our production values seem.  Anywho, we shot for awhile then went to a restaurant who tried to overcharge us by $100.  Took several go rounds with the owner to straighten that out.  We shot some more the next day, then on the 4th, most of us went to the Padres game at Petco Park followed by a cookout at the Wonders hosted by Jamie's cousin Aaron.  What a fantastic day!  There was a jerk at the park during fireworks, but we weren't going to let him spoil our day.

The following week, my sister and her family came out to visit for a few days.  They stayed down in Anaheim, which was pretty central to all the activities we had planned.  We met them at Downtown Disney for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.  The next morning we headed down to Carlsbad to go to Legoland.  We had a good time, in spite of the fact that the rides were definitely aimed at young kids.  Afterwards, we met up with the Siebers at Ruby's on the pier in Oceanside.  That was a very enjoyable experience, and I recommend it to those visiting the area.  On Saturday, the Theodores met us out at the construction site to check out our new digs.  The kids couldn't go inside and for some reason had the hardest time figuring out that we didn't actually live there yet.  The finish date has been pushed to mid-February, but hopefully they'll finish early.  We then introduced the Theodores to In-N-Out, which is really near our new place.  That night we ate at CPK at Hollywood & Highland where I'm sure we saw Robert Downey, Jr.  We just missed Hillary Duff at her premiere of The Cinderella Story.  My niece, Lauren, was anxious to try to catch a glimpse of her.  The kids spent the night with us that night to give Grace and Steve a much-needed break.  The next morning we took the kids down to the La Brea tar pits where you can actually watch them excavating some fossils amidst the tar-y ground.

After the Theodores left, we had a couple of days to catch up on work and housecleaning and such.  But then on Tuesday, we drove back down to Laguna Beach to see the Pageant of the Masters, where they recreate life-size works of art.  It really is amazing how they can make the 3-dimensional live people look like they are a part of the 2-dimensional painting.  We had a couple more days of normalcy before the Siebers came up this weekend for their anniversary.  We saw The Clearing and Napoleon Dynamite with them.  Yes, I did enjoy ND for the 3rd time.

Amongst all of this, I actually did get some work done.  I'm finishing up my first big project with my newest client, and I meet with the producers of CSI this week to discuss my next big project.  Jamie got booked yesterday for a 16-day straight job starting today.  She'll be quite busy, but the pay is good, and she's getting to work for a new stylist, so her experience and connections are growing by leaps and bounds.  OK, exhale.

OK, it's official, we'll be in Texas April 19th-25th!

The last thing we did on our Christmas trip to Vegas was to see Cirque du Soleil's Mystere.  It was quite cool, but I think the amazement factor lowers slightly with each Cirque show based on diminishing returns.  Along Came Polly was quite funny.  I'm not sure when the last time I saw a movie in which I laughed that much.

Sorry for the paltry entries in January.  I got really popular work-wise, which is good, but I didn't feel like spending my leisure time at the computer, too.  We'll see how February goes.

Sure, it's been a while, but I thought I'd continue on the Christmas story.  On our first full day, we did a little gambling, got some appetizers at Bradley Ogden's restaurant, and then saw Jerry Seinfeld perform at Caesar's palace in the theater built for Celine Dion.  I really enjoyed Jerry's standup.  Probably the second best I've seen.  First up is Jim Gaffigan, whom we are going to get to see again in February.  After the show we went back to Bradley Ogden's for dinner, which was muy excellente.  I mean, wow.  The only downside was that they were out of mint, so no Mojitos for Pete-o.

The next day we caught a van out to the airport, where we boarded a helicopter.  I should preface this with the fact that my stomach was not too happy with me for several hours before we got to the airport.  Anywho, we got on the helicopter and flew to the Grand Canyon, where we landed down inside and had champagne and crackers.  It was awesome!  I only wish that I weren't so queasy going into it.  But I pulled through without incident.

So far, anyway, I've let this year get away from me.  I have my reasons, but let's not bore them with that.  So, Christmas happened.  Jamie and I stayed in Cali for Christmas, though we are looking forward to our next visit to Texas some time this Spring.  Jamie had to work on Christmas eve, so we didn't get on the road to Fallbrook until 5 p.m., the perfect time to find holiday traffic.  We spent the night at the Siebers and opened up our Christmas presents there the next morning.  As you can see, I got a suede coat, and Jamie got a cat.  OK, so she already had the cat, but this was the best picture I got.  Quick side note while mentioning the coat, I have no become a weather wuss.  Already.  It is not cold here, but now that I have Ugg boots that keep my feet so nice and toasty, I don't like to go out without them.  In New York or even Texas, I would have been wearing sandals even if it were 20 degrees cooler.  I'm pathetic, and I apologize.

Christmas afternoon we went down to Jamie's aunt and uncle's place on Coronado Island.  We snacked and hung out with Matt (Jamie's cousin) and Jackie (his girlfriend).  Eventually, we opened another barrage of presents there, had dinner, and then had a little white elephant gift exchange action.  Fortunately, the fart machine went to Uncle Ron, so that I could have some peace and quiet at home.  We left their house around 7 or 8 p.m. I guess, and headed on to Las Vegas.

We got to Vegas at around 1 a.m. the next morning, and proceeded to check in at Treasure Island.  It took awhile checking in, because it was so late, and they were booked pretty solid.  We had wanted a king size bed, but they said that all they had was two queen size beds; they were completely out of king size beds.  No big deal, but we pressed the issue to see if they might throw a little something our way.  They didn't.  Jamie and I got up to our room, and there was a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, and our key didn't work.  I'm kind of glad that the key didn't work, because if it did, and I had disturbed something, then I myself would have been disturbed.  Anywho, I called downstairs to let them know what happened.  After waiting in the hall for 15 minutes, finally a manager came to take us to a different room, because supposedly “the safe was broken in that room”.  Likely story.  We take the service elevator to another room, which did have a king size bed.  A miracle!  Here they had just told us that they did not have king size available, sent us to an occupied room, made us wait, and then all of a sudden someone checked out of their room at 1 a.m.  The room was great; the runaround was not.  Eventually, we settled down to sleep.  One more quick thing before I go.  It was a nice hotel, a nice room, but the towels sucked.  They were like sandpaper.  And then they have the audacity to only wash the towels if they are thrown on the floor.  I wonder if somewhere in the hotel, for the really rich people, they actually have nice big, soft towels.  More tomorrow, or next month.

OK, where was I?  We went back to my sister's house after Freaky Friday.  Jamie and Lauren hung out by the pool, while Luke and I threw the frisbee around the front yard.  My parents came over for the family dinner to celebrate Lauren's birthday.  After dinner, Luke wandered across to a friend's yard to play.  He was climbing over a wooden fence, when all of a sudden, the top portion of the plank that he was leaning on snapped, and he fell through the fence to the ground below.  He was in a lot of pain, so after Grace doped him up, Steve took him up to the emergency room.  I went up to bring them some snacks about an hour later.  Luke was in much better spirits.  Turns out he broke his collarbone.  He has to wear what looks like a backpack without the pack.  It actually doesn't look that uncomfortable.

The next day, we got up early to say goodbye to Lauren, who had to go to school unlike her injured brother.  About lunchtime, we headed down to Austin to connect with Mark.  We had lunch at this gigantic Schlotzcky's that had a really weird menu.  It was good, though.  Then, we dropped Jamie off at the Arboretum, and Mark and I went to Fry's.  That night, Mark, Becky, B-dub, Ben and I all met up at P.F. Chang's downtown for dinner and drinks.  It was all quite tasty.  I tried to talk all of them into moving out to southern California.

After dinner, we went to the Wilson's house to spend the night.  We stayed up for a while talking to B-dub and Jan, trying to talk them into moving out here.  We got to see pictures and video from the wedding.  The next morning, B-dub, Mark and I met for breakfast at Magnolia's to 'talk business'.  They had breakfast food; I had a root beer float.  Am I leaving anything out?

Jamie and I got on the plane around noon after eating Saltlick at the airport.  While Jamie did spot a suspicious person, he didn't try to blow up our plane.  Whew.  We got back just in time to drive from the airport to Jamie's work.  That's right, she had to work the day she got back.  Poor girl.  I came home and did laundry and got the place liveable again.  Thus, endeth our vacationeth.

On Tuesday, we slept in and then headed down to Temple for lunch with my folks at El Chico.  My mom was full of stories from her recent Canada trip.  After lunch, we went next door to PDI, my old summer workplace.  We talked to Heath Robinson and Michael Cooper for a while.  Then, we went to Belton to my sister's house, where we arrived in time to take a nap.  We ended up not taking much of a nap as Luke and Lauren arrived home before long.  We all went to Lauren's soccer game, which was a lot of fun.  Lauren played goalie in the second half, and she really made some incredible saves.  Luke spent most of the game jumping or crawling on me.  After the game, we got burgers back at the house, and then Jamie and I went over to Heath & Courtney's house for a little while.  We had a nice chat out on the front porch until Jamie pointed to a HUGE spider that was on the pillar right next to me.  I'm pretty sure this wasn't a tarantula, but it was just as big.  I quickly removed myself from that situation.  Heath tried to kill it with his shoe, but only managed in knocking off one of its huge legs.  Its spider buddies probably will call it "Seven Legs" or "South-Easty".

The next day was for us to spend with the kids, and spend it with them we did.  We got up early (for us) and took the kids to IHOP for a brunch.  Then, we headed to the mall to see when Freaky Friday was playing.  We had a couple hours to kill, so we went over to Tilt and played a bunch of video games.  I'm not sure why Tilt is even open during the day on a school day, but at least we had the place to ourselves.  The kids both traded in their tickets and got tons of little toys and trinkets.  Next we headed over to Petco where the kids could look at the animals.  Luke spotted one of the parrots out of its cage.  Fortunately it was doubly contained by the bird room.  Lauren noticed that only 4 out of the 5 hamsters in the hamster cage were actually alive.  It was pretty gross.  Apparently, hamsters are cannibals.  Movie time.  Freaky Friday was bearable.  The new theater in Temple was quite an improvement over the old ones.  Luke didn't care too much for the sitting still that is typically associated with movie-going, but fortunately there were only two other people in the theater, and they weren't anywhere near us.  All of this, and it's now only 1:45 pm.

Come Monday, it was time to visit a few people on campus.  I went by Casey Computer Center, where I talked to Lynne, Lonnie, Mary, and Mike Pond.  Unfortunately, Larry was out, so I didn't get a chance to have speaks with him.  I also got to visit with Daniel Eady over in Pat Neff, where he has moved out of the closet and into a swanky new office.  He was able to give me some more detail about the brouhaha that has been Baylor for the last several months.  Hopefully, everything will start settling down there now.  I also found Reagan Ramsower with a little time to chat, which was lucky and enjoyable.

Lunch was held at Ninfa's, and what a wonderful occasion it was.  I got chicken fajita queso and a Santa Cruz #2.  Man, I miss that place.  In case you hadn't noticed, much of our vacation was planned around eating at particular places.

After lunch, we went to the church to help prepare for the DCB CD release party.  Dave, however, was not there.  While playing at chapel that morning, which I also went to and forgot to mention before, his heart started doing some weird stuff.  So, he spent most of that day in the hospital getting tested and fixed.  Turns out he was "in afib", and they got him patched back up ("fib"?) about 30 minutes before the show was about to start.  Like a true rock star, he made it to the show, and it started on time.  The place was packed out.  I hear that there were about 1200 people in there.  Before the show started, though, we had dinner with B-dub & Jan & Ben Burch at Rudy's  BBQ.  At the show, I just hung in there for a couple songs, and then went to the backside to hang with Kyle and the Perkins's's's.  I knew that I would be seeing the concert in Hollywood on Saturday, so better to hang with friends that I wouldn't get to see otherwise.  Dave made it through the show, and was signing autographs afterwards.  I remember thinking that if I were him, I would be signing the CDs with "I should be in the hospital right now, but instead I'm standing here writing my name on your CD.  Dave Crowder."

Come to think of it, this was the night we went to Crickets...I think.

I'm trying to put a little time between these entries, so that you can get caught up, but I'm still more than a week behind, and I want to get to the current stuff, so I'm cranking it out.

After the Elite on Saturday, we went up to the church where Jamie helped stuff DCB pre-ordered CDs.  Once that was done we headed up to Crickets for some Guinness and apple pie.  The waitress was terrible.  Our chips and queso came AFTER our apple pie.  Pathetic.  By the way, the night before and this night Ben and I played a little foosball before bedtime.

Sunday we got to go to ubc for church.  We sat on the front row, which was quite a change for me.  Dave was right there in front of me; it was a little awkward.  Kyle preached a great sermon about emotions and transformation, though his incredible hulk bit could have used some sprucing up or trimming down.  After church, we all went to Chili's Too again.  I realize that there is nothing so special about Chili's Too that we would eat there twice on one vacation, but we didn't pick the place, and the company (aka fellowship) was more important.

After lunch, Jamie and I jumped in the Gran Dam, and headed up to Dallas to visit our friends Tawny and Cooper.  We met at their apartment.  They recently got a new dog, which I'm sure Jamie will tell you about.  Tawny's sister and sister's boyfriend were there as well.  It turns out that they live just about 5 blocks north of us here in Hollywood.  Craziness!  The boyfriend, Dan, works in production, and I might get to be involved with a short film he's shooting through the LA film school.  I spent the next couple of hours trying to get Tawny and Cooper to move out here.  I'm hoping they'll be here by my birthday.  We went to dinner at a really trendy cool place called Nikita.  If you are in the Dallas area and like trendy, go.  Back to Waco, I played some foosball before bed.

Saturday, we slept in.  We had lunch at the new Chili's Too located in the new parking garage on the Baylor campus.  It's pretty cool.  You order at the register, then they bring it to your table.  I just hope that they keep that place up.  After lunch, we met up with Ben and Jamie and Jamie's family who were meeting with a builder to discuss the construction of a new apartment building.  We went with them to another apartment complex that the builder had built.  The places were pretty cool, much too cool for a college student to have.  But in time, I guess they'll just become another 'The Centre".  We drove around campus to see the new buildings, and I noticed that Mark Twain is now gone.  Mark Twain, the apartment complex that we lived in our junior year.  I've known about the other Mark Twain being gone for some time now.  We met up with Ben & Jamie's family for dinner at the new Elite Circle Grill.  After years of remodeling, they're back in business.  It's quite a change, from a 50's diner style to an art deco style.  Though the waitress was not so great, the food was.  No, they do not still have those rolls, but they do have a pretty good bread instead.  More later...

While there was a part of me that wanted to blog while we were on our vacation, I knew that if I were to sit at a computer for too long, I would start working, which would defeat the whole purpose of being on vacation.  That's the downside to telecommuting.  Even though you are travelling around the country, the Internet makes your work follow you.  But on to bringing you up to speed.  I'll try to go in chronological order, but I make no promises.

We arrived in Austin last Friday around 2:00 pm.  For once, Jamie didn't find anybody on the plane of whom to be suspicious.  Unfortunately, there was a snorer on the row behind us.  It wasn't just a regular, constant snore.  I think the guy was dreaming about being Seabiscuit because of the sporadic sounds coming from behind us.  He was asleep before we even left the gate.  His wife did nothing to stop him.  When we arrived, we didn't have to go through baggage claim, as this was our first attempt at carrying our luggage on the plane, instead of checking it.  Pretty sweet.  We picked up our Pontiac Grand Am that had 63 miles on it, and headed up to Waco.  We stayed with Ben and Jamie Dudley.  That night we went to Baja Burrito, I think it's called.  It's a Freebird's ripoff in the old Cadillac Jack's building downtown Waco.  It was pretty good, but I would rate Chipotle better.

After dinner, we went up to ubc to get a tour of all the new stuff.  The floors are now all stained concrete, and the sanctuary now looks like a finished room.  The pews are gone and the chairs have come.  The upstairs has exploded since I was there.  The amount of equipment up there has easily doubled in size.  They've got a cool new lighting system and a video-editing station up there, plus they've got wireless internet kicking through the building.  This blog may already be getting too long for some of you, so I'll break it up a little bit.