« Posts under Family and Friends

New Site Design

Recently, I helped my brother, Dustin, get started using WordPress. WordPress is a website engine that makes creating and maintaining a blog easy. I’ve looked at it before, but didn’t look at some of the more interesting features, such as adding themes, widgets, and plugins. This time I did and I liked what I saw. The website I was designing needed additional features and I never could find enough time to write them.

I’m having some issues with images. WordPress doesn’t seem to allow multiple image galleries in a single page. Feel free to add comments and suggestions.

Vacation Then Jury Duty

Alexis and I drove all over Texas and half of New Mexico for our vacation. We drove to Ruidoso and stopped in Lubbock on the way there, then stopped in Odessa on the way back to visit with family and friends. Our stays in all three places were great. In Ruidoso we went to a stocked pond where we caught some rainbow trout. They provided the poles, bait, license, and cleaned the fish. It was fun, but being a stocked pond, the fish hit the bait less than a minute after dropping the bait into the water. Here’s a few pictures:

The fish were placed in a sink after we caught them. Shortly afterward they were cleaned, hence the knife on the left.


This is one of the first fish I caught. The biggest one was 11.5 inches.

One of the strangest moments during our trip was when we noticed a car pull over near some road kill about 20 miles outside of Lubbock. Alexis and I figured they picked up the road kill, but for what purpose is a mystery. In Odessa, we were invited to go to an art show, which was the last thing I thought we would do on our trip. It was surprisingly a lot of fun. One of the funniest moments during our trip was seeing Hunter, my nephew, taste a lemon. At first he didn’t think anything of it until he managed to get enough of it to make a sour face. It was priceless.

Near the first of the month, I received a jury summons. I was panicked a bit when I opened it, but relieved when I saw that the date was after our vacation. Alexis had a jury summons several months ago and when she arrived at the courthouse, she was notified that it was canceled. I was hoping for the same. No such luck for me as I went through the whole process. To top it off it was a child indecency trial. There was testimony from the victim, the victim’s mother, a couple of police officers, and a child advocacy worker. No solid evidence and no other witnesses. There was evidence that the guy was in the area, but it really came down to whether the jury believed the child’s story beyond a reasonable doubt. After much debate and nearly a hung jury, a painful process, the verdict was guilty. I don’t know what the sentence is, since the jury doesn’t decide the punishment. I would be happy never to go through that, or anything similar, ever again.

Good Times

This weekend was a blast. Dustin and Hunter visited and Alexis had a birthday. Friday night Alexis and I went over to my Mom’s place and had dinner, tried to watch Galaxy Quest, and talked all night. We took some pictures of Hunter that I may post sometime this week. Sunday, Alexis and I went out to eat at Genghis Grill and went shopping. Alexis bought some boxes to put her colored pencils in and a cordless mini-mouse for her netbook. On a side note, I keep forgetting to tell my Dad that if he doesn’t mind a tiny 10″ screen, that a netbook is very affordable and probably all he needs.

I ended up buying EA NHL’09, which I had downloaded as a demo on the 360. I still need to keep playing the games in my back log, but couldn’t resist picking it up. It’s just too much fun. Maybe I can guide the Dallas Stars to victory in the game, because their season looks like it will end soon. I’m not confident that they can make it to the playoffs. In fact odds are they won’t make it, if I understand this website correctly. Richards broke his left hand in the last game just as he was returning from a right wrist injury. So the Stars can’t seem to find any luck, much less the back of the net.