« Posts tagged Odessa

Vacation Then Jury Duty

May 4, 2009 / Paul posted in Family and Friends, Photos, Rare Events, Travels / No Comments

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.

Under the Weather Again

January 11, 2009 / Paul posted in Family and Friends, Hockey Talk, The Day To Day, Travels, Videos / No Comments

I am sick once again. Usually there is substantial time in between illnesses. I’m currently blaming the weather and the immunosuppressant that the doctor gave me to bring down the swelling around my eyes. If I’m not better by tomorrow, then I’ll go into the doctor.

Enough about me, Alexis has had a huge jump in traffic on her website. She usually has about four or five unique visitors a day, but on Friday she had 450 unique vistitors. This happened because Alexis’ brother, Jeremy, linked to her website to show his readers what great work she’s doing with shrinky dinks. Jeremy’s blog is focused toward games and Alexis has made several shrinky dinks based on a game called Final Fantasy XII. I believe Alexis is going to be selling them once she has a years worth.

Here’s a retro commercial if you’re not familiar with shrinky dinks.

I left out a couple of things that happened during my trip to West Texas. The day we arrived in Odessa; Alexis, Tyler and I, went to a Jackalopes hockey game and had a blast. We had seats two rows away from the glass behind the home teams penalty box. They were so close to the ice that when two opposing players fell near the boards we couldn’t see what was happening. It wasn’t until the referees pulled them up that we realized they had been fighting. The Jackalopes dominated the first period, but fell into penalty trouble in the second and the visiting team mounted a come back. In the third the Jacks came out on top. There were a couple of fights in the game, hard checking, and great puck handling which made the game enjoyable to watch. At the end of the game as the players skated to the locker room, they threw T-shirts to the fans and I managed to grab one. I also forgot to mention the fun I had giving my nephew a personalized blanket, which has his name, birth date, birth time, length, and weight. He’s too young to appreciate it, but I think he will eventually. Alexis helped me find a store to order the blanket from, which fortunately is located in a huge building in downtown Dallas. Instead of paying for shipping, I could pick it up. Even though I work downtown I’m not familiar with the area around the big buildings, so I called ahead to ask where I should park. The guy who answered said he would meet me at the street and to call when I was close. Curb side service was a nice surprise.

Happy New Year

January 4, 2009 / Paul posted in Family and Friends, The Day To Day, Travels / No Comments

December was full of good times and bad.

“The Bad” involved stressful work over weekends, a shower that’s falling apart, and a trip to West Texas that was cut short due to an allergic reaction that left me with swollen eyes. At work, the deadlines placed on the release of software were uncomfortably close to the holidays. There were new requirements that were added very close to the release date. I worked two weekends to make sure everything was done. The combination of the three made things a might stressful. Our master bathroom shower tiles started having cracks in the grout. To repair them, I started chipping away the old grout and ended up pulling a dozen or so tiles off the wall. The tiles were placed directly onto the dry wall without treatment which led to the deterioration of the dry wall in some places. Alexis and I are currently weighing our options of what to do, repair or remodel.For the holidays, we drove to Odessa and then to Lubbock. In Odessa, I came in contact with something that I am allergic to. My eyelids swelled up, but my eyeballs were fine. No redness, just swollen, puffy, uncomfortable eyelids and eye sockets. The drive to Lubbock was fine, but it didn’t improve my condition. It wasn’t until I went to the doctor back home that I improved. My theory is that I was allergic to Eucalyptus at my Dad’s house and the allergens stuck to my pillow where it followed me to Lubbock. Alexis has washed my pillow about three times now.

“The Good” in December actually out numbers the bad. Alexis and I had our eight year anniversary, the trip to West Texas was fun, and gifts were exchanged.Alexis and I have been married for eight years and to celebrate we bought a 42 inch HD TV. The eight years have gone by so very fast. Our trip to Odessa and Lubbock was fun despite my allergic reaction. I enjoyed visiting family and eating great food. One day that I wasn’t all puffy and had a lot of fun was with my two brothers. My brothers, Alexis, and I had an awesome time at Fast Eddie’s in Odessa. Fast Eddie’s is a pool hall that didn’t exist while I lived in Odessa. If it had, my best friend, Kevin and I would have visited it on a regular basis. After eating lunch at Rosa’s, we all played pool and darts into the evening. In all we spent about six hours there.Gift exchange this year was rewarding. I bought Alexis a portable photo light box for taking pictures with consistent lighting and low shadows. She has started using it to take pictures of the shrinky dinks she makes and may eventually sell. I also bought her a Nintendo DS game that she played a demo of a month ago, called Soul Bubbles. She bought me a Xbox 360 game called Dead Rising, two books I heard about on NPR, and a Firefly graphic novel that prompted us to have a Firefly marathon after we both read it.

Despite “The Bad” in December it ended on a good note and I resolve to never let a month go by again when I don’t update my blog. Although she hasn’t said it aloud, I believe Alexis has resolved the same for her website. Happy New Year!