Goodbye 2005

Since this is my last post for the year 2005, I thought it would be nice to look back on my log and reflect what has events have happened through the year month by month. All events can be found in my Archives of my BLOG. Let's see how this goes.

January

* Looking back at January, I noticed that I started the year working the door at the Country Inn for the New Years eve celebration.

* Randy had just entered the Mountaineer Challenge academy

February

* The first thing that sticks out to me was a list I created of things I wanted to do.

1. Fly a Kite.
   
2. Take lots of pictures (like thats a surprise)
3. Reunite family members and go see some other family members that I haven't seen in literally decades.
   
4. Get a group of people together and rent some bikes and bike rails to trails as a group for a few hours. What would really be nice is if we could start in Masontown, WV and bike to Morgantown. (It's all downhill)

Well, it looks like I didn't do #1, I did do #2 and #3 and #4 never happened. I think people would enjoy #4 and #1 still sounds like fun, so I'll put them on the 2006 to do list.

* I did manage to get a few old family pictures scanned, thanks to Mom and Terri for helping supply the pictures and giving me access to a scanner.

* The biggest event of the month was me breaking the ice with my sister Kim and visiting her. It was the first time I had actually seen her since her wedding.

March

* I can see that March was a very good month for me.

* I had an interview with my current employer, closed the books on process for another employer that was just strung out too long and received an offer for another interview from another company.

* My Nephew Daniel got Married on March 4th

* I totally redesigned george-hall.net to its current style.

* Brittany worked as a Page in Charleston

* Everyone was falling in love again with the WVU Men's Basketball team. We welcomed their returns from not one, not two but three basketball weekends with larger, larger and larger crowds.

* The WVU women's basketball made it to the WNIT Finals.

April

* April I started working for VARGIS and said goodbye to the NRAC. I had what I called my ceremonial walk of passage to the NRAC my last day, that was a significant day for me. I was leaving West Virginia University and moving on with my career.

* I managed to make it to a few WVU Baseball games and the WVU Football scrimmage. I went to one game with Ed and Brittany on a nice warm spring Sunday Afternoon.

* Val had started her new Job at Neighbor Care.

* Pam had taken and passed her Pharmacy Tech certification.

May

* VARGIS had its official opening during the month of May. We had been there over a month, but this was the official opening.

* Softball season had kicked off and I was spending Friday evenings with a great bunch of guys, and we usually visited Prime Thyme for dinner after the game throughout the year.

* Probably the most significant event of May to me, was that I had came full circle. I had had my first paid day off in eight years. That is a long time to go without any benefits.

June

* Big Family Pic Nic. Jean and Mickey did a great job once again and hosted a great Pic Nic at Krepps Park. TON's and TON's of great food.

* Randy Graduated from the Mountaineer Challenge Academy.

* I went to my first Jimmy Buffett Concert. Wow, what a show and what a day.

July

* Bill Trevillion had retired from the Morgantown Fire Department.

* Kim had her first surgery that would lead to months of frustration. It's still not all settled as she will enter the Cleveland Clinic next week.

* Brittany visited Mom and Gerald for a weekend. It had been a long time since this had happened and it was the ice in Mom and Kim's relationship starting to melt.

August

* Mom and Kim finally broke their silence.

* We had ended a great Softball season with a second place Regular season finish and runner ups in the Championship Tournament. It was the first time since I played for Sterling that I had advanced to the Finals. Been on a half dozen #1 seed teams, but somehow always abvoided winning anythign in the post season. Talk about Choking.

September

* Michael opened up Cool Ride

* We lost the families oldest pet, Tucker.

* Sharon had a Pic Nic Honoring Bill's retirement. I was nice to be able to visit family members that I had not seen in a few years if not decades.

October

* Went and had a nice visit at Big Bear Lake.

* Kim hosted a Texas Hold'em Tournament that I never made it to. Note to Kim, have another one.

* We celebrated Halloween by giving tons of candy out at Jeans.

* We also had a Huge Snow storm in North Crentral West Virginia. Everyone lost power for a period of time.

November

* Moke took his ACT's

* WVU SMASHED Pitt in the 2005 Edition of the Back Yard Brawl.

* Jean hosted a Thanksgiving dinner.

December

* I celebrated the 21st Anniversay of my 21st Birthday

* I was named the 2005 VARGIS Employee of the year.

* Christmas Eve at Jeans and I did a media file for everyone to remember it by.



In a nustshell that was 2005 according to my BLOG. We broke the ice, we celebrated, we took on new challenges and weaccomplished a few things. I would say for me personally it was a good year.

It's nice to have a BLOG where you can write your thoughts downa dn be able to reflect at the end of the year what has happened.

Obviously, this is my last BLOG for 2005, so I hope everyone enjoyed my recollection of the past 365 days and maybe start their own BLOG for the next 365 days so they can reflect on 2006.

Have a Safe and Happy New Year.

Eve of another four day weeknd,

I think I am going to take next Tuesday off from work. West Virginia battles Georgia Monday night in the Sugar Bowl, and even though something tells me we are going to get blown out, I'm preparing for us to pull the upset. It's not the biggest game WVU football has played, but it certainly will measure up there as one of the most significant.

I've also got a decision to make very soon and this will give me a good chance to contemplate it before I make it. It's getting to be the end of the year and I need to make a decision about where I am going to live during the next year. I have three options.

The first and least likely to happen is that when my lease is up at the end of January I move closer to work. I'm thinking of the West Virginia side of the river in Cumberland. I really haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet, but plan on doinf so soon.

Second, and this is a 50/50 chance, is that I extend my lease one month and leave at the Begining of March. This would be a financial decision. It gives me time to get my Tax Return and have a few enough money to make the move. W-2's will come the last day of my lease, so that puts a time constraint on everything for me.

The third option which is also 50/50 right now is to stay right where I am at for one more year. There are a few things in my life I want to settle, handle or find in the next 12 months. My health being the biggest one because of my sugar levels. I really need to get that under control. This last 12 months for me was establishing stability in my life. this next 12 months I want to work on health, financial security and maybe even the empty and incomplete part of my life.

My career is going good, I like where I am at, who I work with and where my career is heading. I did have an interview last month with a company in Morgantown. They were interested, I told them wheat it would take and haven't heard anything more from them. That was a 50/50 thing also, but getting employee of the year from a company that went from seven to thirty million in sales in 2005 is not something you can overlook. I have played this scenerio the way I wanted to play it, and as exciting as it may have been to stay in Morgantown, I think I would be doing myself a discredit if I didn't challenge myself in my career. My future lies with VARGIS.

There are a lot of factors in my decision where I will live next year, and I think I really need to make a decision over the weekend. Honestly, I don't know what the final decision will be. I change my decision at least once or twice a day.

Anyways, I'll work tomorrow and have a four day weekend for the second weekend in a row.


It's amazing how fast 23 years go by.

Let it Be Christmas

My 2005 Christmas Eve Media File

Christmas Eve Pics

Link to latest additions from Christmas eve. Here are a few random pics, go to the album to see all the pics from Christmas eve.


Merry Christmas

NORAD is Tracking Santa Claus

Yes boys and Girls, Santa Claus has officiall started his Journey. Keep track of St. Nick and his journey around the world with NORAD.

Keep track of Santa as he works his busiest night of the year visiting all the good boys and girls around the world.

Special time of the year.

It's finally here. The one day of the year that we all look foreward to. In my family, I think the biggest event of the holidays is Christmas Eve. It's a time of the year when we all get together, put aside our differences and just enjoy spending time with family. Last year we had Christmas Eve at the Old Country Inn, this year it is returning to its traditional home.

It's amazing sometimes when and where you see and meet people. I was at Wal-Mart last night and I saw Amy and Val. It's nice to see that these two sisters were spending the day Christmas shopping together. After I left Wal-Mart last night, I had to make a return trip at about 2:30AM. I ran into Patty (Toth) Dewitt. I enjoyed conversing with her for a little while and she caught me up on Michaels new addition to the family Christopher Michael Toth.

I told her about Christmas Eve and that Jean keeps saying she needs to go see Christopher Michael, so maybe there will be a little surprise tonight.

I've seen some Christmas Magic work, and it's some pretty powerful stuff. I don't know what Christmas Eve 2005 has in store for it, but whatever it is it usually one for everyone to remember.

I think my most influential Christmas Eve of my life was 1998. After a few years of Hiatus, the Hall Family Christmas was once again in full swing. We had convinced my dad that we wanted to have Christmas Eve there and he really wasn't into it. However, December 24th has some kind of magic associated with it and at the last minute he switched shifts with someone else to join in on the family fun. There definately was some magic to that day, because the ceremonial Christmas eve that had returned to its roots was the last one for dad. We lost him 7 months later. For me, it was a magical night that one of the single most influential people in my life walked back into my life.

It was a night when Jane and I started speaking again, and I think the night that I realized I really didn't want to be with Jackie anymore, even though we had split months earlier, we were still on and off. Less than a month after that night, Jane made me look at Life differently and the next thing you know I'm assembling an entrance application for West Virginia University. The rest is history.

Years have went by and other Christmas Eves have come and passed. I don't know what tonight has to offer, it can always be the the doorway to a life changing event for someone else as it was for me. What ever happens tonight I know it will be special. It has to be, because anytime you can have all your family members associated in one place and it's not a Funeral, it is special, even if it were merely for five minutes.

2005 VARGIS Christmas Party

Last Night, my company had our 2005 Company Christmas party in Frostburg. It was a great evening and the food was great.

I was named the 2005 VARGIS, LLC Employee of the year. That was a nice little added surprise on the evening.

He's still alive (aka Tidbits)

* Yes I know, it has been a while since I have Blogged. People are probably wondering if I still exist or did I lose interest. I've been a little under the weather this week and am just now starting to honestly feel better.

* Christmas is coming up real soon and plans have been made, changed and then rechanged again. You sometimes have to think that this family would make a good soap opera, or at least a sit com.

* Terri, Gary and myself went to Jean's last Saturday and helped put up the Christmas decorations. It was the first time I had seen or talked to Terri in a while, so it was nice to catch up with her a little on things.

* Nick and Terri have shut down the Country Inn. They are planning on opening up "Nick and Terri's" on Rt. 73 near the Goshen Road exit before the end of the year. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated as things happen and the new establishment opens.

* Val has indicated that she is interested in continuing her education at the Vo-Tech center. I really didn't get a chance to talk to her about it much, but I think she is going into medical Billing.

* I did manage to finally put up a few pictures from Thanksgiving, they are in my renamed Holidays Album. I think I am also going to put this years Christmas pictures in there as well.

* Brittany is in for the Holidays from Linsley. I know Kim was very happy to finally have her baby home for the Holidays.

* Speaking of Kim, she captured a great movie of Robert shooting a dear last week. You couldn't ask for a better opportunity than what she had and she hit a game winning grand slam with it. I tried to put it up on where I host my movies, but it only brought in a portion of the movie.

* Tomorrow is my companies Christmas Party. It's on a Sunday night, so I will be staying in Frostburg Sunday Night and commuting about 5 mins to work. Wow what a change that will be. Maybe I should drive to Frederick and back before work so I can keep in practice.

* I have noticed one thing this week. Morgantown only gets a small portion of snow that Frostburg gets. I left work Thursday and there was 12" of snow I had to remove from my car before I could leave. I get back to Morgantown and it's raining. No snow on the ground and to warm to snow. Have I ever mentioned I hate snow?

* I'm going to take my camera to work with me on Monday, or should I say with me for the Christmas Party, hopefully I can get a few nice pics so everyone can see the people I work with on a daily basis.

* Speaking of work, I had an interview with an Engineering firm in Mon County a couple weeks ago. They are interested, but I'm getting the impression that they don't want to offer me what I was asking. It could be that they are waiting on equipment, but for once in my life I didn't interview for a job out of necessity, but rather out of just exploring my options.

Since it's been a while since I posted, I thought I would leave everyone with a couple Christmas gifts.




I'll Be Home for Christmas.



Holly Jolly Christmas


And how about my Encore just for good nature.



Wonderful World

Have a great day.

Survivor Guatemala Final

Tonight was the Survivor Guatemala Final, unfortunately I am a little under the weather and have taped it so I can view it tomorrow, however I am awake when the Million Dollars was awarded to Danni Boatwright. She was the last one standing and beat Steph in the final two.

Happy Birthday Kim

Today is December 4th, I would like to take this chance to extend a very Happy Birthday wish to my Sister Kim. She's a year younger than I am, but I seem to forget what that number is because I tend to celebrate anniversaries of previous birthdays.

So to Kim, I hope today is a special day for you. May your coffee be the perfect temperature, may you get enough rest and enough to eat. I hope that everything goes exactly how you choose.



As I look back on the years,
I realize there have been so many times
when my heart has been touched by your kindness...

So many times,
when something you said helped me to see a solution;
Or something you had done helped to brighten my day.
So many times,
when your wide open arms and soft gentle smile,
helped to ease all my troubles away.

Thank you for making such a beautiful
difference in my life...so many times.

Survivor Night

I missed last week because it coincided with the back yard brawl. Seems like I missed Gary Hogeboom being voted off last week. If you need a review of what happened, you can read about it here. I was a a little bit too occupied watching a great football game.

This weeks show starts off as usual as a review of what happened last week. The final six survivors are contemplating who will be the next to go, Danni is the last remaining member of her tribe, so it would be good guess that she will be the next to go.

The rewards challenge is an auction that gave survivors a dollar amount and food items were auctioned off. First was Beef jerky, then three chocolate chip cookies, then a mosquito net, a Philly steak sandwich and fries, a sealed envelope that needs to remain sealed until the immunity challenge, a visit with family members to stay over night, plus the winner was allowed to pick two other survivors to allow them to stay with their family, leaving half of the survivors visiting people from home and three with no one.

Danni won the envelope that contained something that could possibly help them win immunity, but it was not revealed as to what it could be. I guess we are going to have to wait and see as to what it is that will give her a unique advantage in the immunity challenge. If she were to win immunity, it would reveal who the alliances pecking order would be.

The immunity challenge was a big puzzle that they had to complete. Danni's envelope that she won during the auction was a card that allowed her to change positions with any other player at any time during the puzzle solving. The first person to solve the puzzle wins immunity. It was enough to allow her to switch places with Steph and she managed to be the one winning immunity. This means one oof the five remaning alliance members would be going home tonight. Lydia I would imagine seems to be the odd member out of the alliance, but they also could get rid of the biggest threat of Rafe.

I have my own personal favorite that I would like to be seen gone, but it could be interesting to see who will be the next player who will be joining the jury.

At Tribal Council I got my Birthday gift when the asshole Judd Seargant was sent home.



Bye Bye Asswipe!

How much is your BLOG worth

My blog is worth $2,258.16.
How much is your blog worth?

Backyard Brawl 2005

No, I didn't do this one, but it's good enough to post here.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Turkey day everyone. I hope that everyone has a pleasant day and has the opportunity to increase their waist size an inch or two on this day.

For anyone who would like a brief description of the Thanksgiving Story, I found a site that is rather well written and gets to the point. I was going to cut and paste it here, but it's copywrited and I don't want to tick off the author, so I linked it for everyone.

My plans today are to go to Jean's and eat Thanksgiving dinner and then later tonight I am going to miss my favorite TV show Survivor so that I can watch WVU beat Pitt's ass in the Backyard Brawl.

I'm making sue my batteries are charged up, so I will try to take a few pictures of today for everyone to enjoy. I might even take my tripod up and try to get a few family portraits of everyone.

Some tidbits and information for everone. Kim was back in the hospital the past week to have her stent removed and there were some minor complications. She is going to have another surgery next week. She spent last weekend in the hospital and I know she hates it with a passion. She's getting better and was released to go home Monday. So she will be enjoying the holiday form home.


I still haven't spoken with Terri in some time. From my understanding they are going to close the Country Inn and are trying to open another establishment on Rt. 73 where the building overhead is not such a burden on them. I'll provide more details when I get them. Jean said that they will be at the Country Inn tonight for the last performance by the Chicken Pickers.

This will be the first year in some time that everyone will not be goign Bowling this evening, however we're playing a sold out football game on ESPN tonight at the same time period, so we are taking a year off from bowling.

Gain a few pounds.

Survivor Guatemala

Once again it is that time of the week. The weekend is a day away and it must be time for Survivor. Prayers go out to my sister Kim who will be watching tonight's episode from the hospital once again. She should be going home tomorrow, but tonight she has to watch Judd get voted off from the Hospital.

As you will recall, last weeks show had a nice little twist involved to it. The survivors were ready to vote out former NFL QB Gary Hogeboom, but this seasons show hid an immunity idol somewhere in the deep dark reaches of the forest. Gary, knowing he would have been voted off, found the immunity idol and threw a monkey wrench into the whole strategy.

I noticed in the preshow Popularity Vote that Bobby Jon has surpassed Steph as the most popular survivor. She has managed to have a deathgrip on that top position, amazing that she no longer holds the top spot. Probably because of her alliance with the shipdit that I want to see voted off next.

The rewards challenge was when our eight survivors were broken down into two team of two men and two women each. It was an obstacle course through some knee deep mud to grab a large pot full of corn. They had to maneuver back and dump their pot of corn into a larger pot. The first team of four to fill their pot won the rewards challenge.

The reward for the four winning team members was a chance to stay overnight in a luxury home with all the comforts of home and a chance to relax and get ready for the final run to the million dollars.

Something that has been strongly presented over the past two weeks has been Jamie acting like a complete idiot. He's just trying to pick fights with everyone and isn't making any friends.

For the immunity challenge, it was another obstacle course of untying a large series of knots and manuvering yourself to the end. Rafe was the first to finish the challenge and managed to win himself immunity.

At Tribal Council, hothead Jamie was eliminated.

What is it you do for a living

GIS is a very big and broad field. I've explained it as the worlds best database with geo-referenced pictures. There are so many things that you can do with it and once the data is created, it's interchangeable with other datasets.

Working for VARGIS, I have done some photogrammatry work on planametric data, but mostly I have been doing GIS projects.

Today I was introduced to a site that is pretty close to what we are doing. This is the end result of the data in an IMS system. It's merely one parcel (not one we did), but the client specs look very similar to a project we are currently working on for Western Maryland.

This is a very user friendly end product for everyone to get an idea of what I do. I basically assemble all these datasets in a geodatabase. Everything you would see in the window, is what I do.


Have fun and enjoy

Survivor Guatemala

Once again it's Wed night and it's Survivor night. Going to keep it brief tonight, got a few other things going on behind the scenes so my attention is limited for tonight.

In the rewards challenge, shipdit Judd won the challenge where they had to throw an arrow to see who was the closest to throw an arrow to a Target. Everyone wins a meal, but since Judd was closest, he wins a Steak and Lobster dinner.

At the immunity challenge, the survivors had to navigate through a three part obstacle course with four survivors going to the second part, two survivors going to the finals and one survivor left standing after navigating through the robe bridge at the final. Jamie Newton was the immunity winner tonight.

At Tribal Council, former NFL QB Gary Hogeboom found the other immunity idol and was also given immunity. Nice twist to the game considering he was going home tonight. However, after the vote, former survivor player Bobby Jon Drinkard was the next player voted out and was the first member of the jury.

Congrats Moke

As I was getting off work yesterday and walking to my car, I noticed that I had a message on my phone and it was from Pam and Georges number. So, I called back before checking my message to see what was up. What was up was my Nephew Mokie had accomplished a goal that he set out for himself over the summer. Last year, he barely missed the honor role and was determined to make it this year.

The news was good, he just found out yesterday that he made the Honor Roll at Clay Battelle High School. While I was talking to him I could tell he was on cloud nine and felt very proud of him accomplishment. Now he has his eyes set on something that I could never achieve, he's going to try and pull off a 4.0 GPA. I think he can do it.

He went off to a camp this spring that prepares High School students for college life and I think this has been a big inspiration to him. He's already taken his ACT and is waiting on those results. He's wanting to attend He says he plans to go into Engineering at WVU.

I think he's finally realized his potential and he sees that the sky is the limit.

Congrats Moke!

A New Multi-Media File

I decided to do another multi-media file. I knew it was about time that I produce another one and was looking for ideas. I was looking through my music and saw a song that I felt I could do a file to, and incorporate old family video footage rather than my traditional photos.

So, dedicated readers, here is another viseo. I hope you like it.

Hmm, just surfing and found this

first rank and of left on the right
Yohann Gregorzick, Eric Dohm, Sabine Vain, Eric..., Anjoushree Nandi, Valerie Poncin, Nathalie Nightingale.
second rank
Nihat Rehmani, David Heneuse..., Philippe Leonard, Vincent Jadin, Stéphane Luca, Picardy Lydia.
third rank
Eric Tshilembe, Lionel Deneys, Eric Bednarzick, Patricia Feys, Christel..., Yolande Van Potelsbergh, Mrs Clepkens

Survivor Guatemala

Once again it's survivor night. On an ironic note I am watching a football game between Pitt and Louisville before the start of survivor. It's 7-7 0:25 seconds into the game and there hasn't been a snap taken yet. Wow, that's going to be a game. Speaking of games, on to Survivor.

On the Game's pre-show, I checked the popularity poll and with no surprise Steph is tops in the popularity poll. Last week after tribal council, Jeff through a big surprise and announced that the merge was taking place right then and there. So no more Yaxha or Nakum tribes and there will be a new united tribe and no more tribal immunity, now everyone plays for individual immunity.

At the start of the show, Jeff threw another monkey wrench into the equation and that was the fact that in the somewhere hidden in the jungle, there was hidden a six inch immunity idol that would allow the person who found it a chance to use it at anytime through throughout the rest of the game. It could be used this week or it could be used as strategy to help secure themselves a spot in the final two later in the game, provided they last that long. The only deal is that they have to announce prior to the tribal council that they want to use it, that they are in fact going to use it. I think it adds a new and unique twist to the game. Kudos to Jeff for keeping the game interesting. If Judd finds it, he should be shot at dawn though.

On day 20, the merged tribe came up with a new name for the tribe. They came up with the name Xhakum by merging the names of the two tribes together. Although you could see that the remaining members of the two tribes still had alliances with each other. There are the five people and one asshole that make up the Nakum tribe against the four remaining member of Yaxha.

At the immunity challenge, Jeff threw another monkey wrench into the game. Everyone showed up and had a choice, if they did not want to take part in the immunity challenge and felt they would not be voted off, they didn't have to. They would be allowed to take part in a big feast. However, if they felt they could be going home, they could take part in the immunity challenge, however they would not be allowed to take place in the feast of food. The immunity challenge was basically standing on a log with a pot on their heads for the longest period of time. At the end of one hour, there was a tie breaker, they had to put the pot on their head and had to climb the pyramid without breaking their pot. At the tie-breaker, former NFL Quarterback Gary Hogeboom won the immunity challenge tie breaker and won the individual immunity.

At tribal council, Brandon Bellinger was voted out by a 6-4 vote.

Testing a new feature

This is a test using an old Video file Mom did last year.

Halloween

Tonight was Halloween and everyone managed to go up to Jean's for dinner and to take the kids trick or treating. This is a safe environment to take the kids out, and everyone seems to know this. Jean prepared 400 Candy bars to give out from 5:30 to 7:30 for the trick or treaters. Well, like I said everyone comes up for this and at 7:10 we gave the last candy bar away. That is 400 Trick or Treaters, minus the one or two that a few of us grabbed, but we had to turn the lights out prior to the 7:30 shut off time.

Everyone seemed to have a very good time, Rich's identical twin sister Richina made it for the evening as you can tell.

I think all of the kids managed to make out like bandits. Everyone seems to have a really good time. We managed to see both young and old and princesses and scary people coming to the door. The were many unique costumes that I saw tonight, surprisingly there was no really stand out theme or costume like in years past.

Pam did the duty of handing out the candy this year and did a great job at it. Almost to the point of a true professional.

It was a good evening.

Tidbits

* It's been a while, maybe I need to do a little tidbits to catch up on everything.

* I was supposed to play in a Texas Hold'em tournament this weekend at Kim's, but I went to work Saturday and came home and tried to take a nap. Yeah right, I was done for the night.LOL

* Gary and Renee have moved this weekend. They now have Renee's dad's old house up here on 119 just past Nick and Terri's.

* This past week has been a bad one. We got an unexpected storm Monday that dropped a foot of wet snow on the area. The leaves hadn't fallen off the trees as of yet and weighted the trees down and caused them to fall. I was without electric for 27 hours. Val and Amy were both out for a couple days as was Terri. Things are slowly getting back to normal though.

* I did get a chance to talk to Terri for a couple minutes this week, it was when I was going and picking up Farida and taking her to a place where she could be warm during the power outage.

* I was talking to Mark Devault friday night at the Mohawk Bowl, He's organizing his sites and is in the process of moving his databases to Mountaineerstats.com to keep things a little more organized.

* Speaking of the Mohawk Bowl, I sat at the game with a long time friend and former teammate Smitty. It was good to see him and Emily, I swear I'm getting old she's in 9th grade now.

* Let's see, the Mohigans played and won Friday night, the Mountaineers will play this Wed and the Steelers play on MOndayNight Football this week. Talk about a slow week for football for me.

Have a good week.

Survivor Guatemala

First, let me say that I'm glad to have my electric back after losing it due to the snow storm a few days ago. I know a few others who still do not have it back, hang in there order will soon be restored and everyone will have electric and water again. I spoke with Val earlier today and neither her nor Amy have electric or water and my sister Terri still does not have electric.

This weeks show starts out with a little reminder of who needs to go. Make your own interpretation as to who I think deserves to be the next survivor that needs to be voted off and sent home packing. The popularity poll sees Steph retaining her lead among viewers of the most popular survivor, but her numbers have dropped about 10% points from last week. Her numbers are probably down a little because she has teamed up with the nutcase with A.D.D.

The show starts right off with a rewards challenge. Each team starts with a member who has to wrap 30' of cloth around their body, then they and the next person go and THEY wrap 30' of material around both of them and so on and so on, once all four members have all the cloth wrapped around them, they then need to do the exact opposite and unwind all the material around the polls one by one. Five members from each team participate with one helping to wind and the other four wrapping themselves. The reward was for Chocolate that just happened to be initially discovered on the isle of Guatemala and a tour of the island. Yaxha won the reward challenge by a large distance. They had all five members across the finish line before Nakum got two across. A.D.D. boy didn't participate for Nakum. Have I ever mentioned what survivor I don't like?

After they received their reward, Yaxha traveled to Nakum's tribe so they could invite them to a pool party back at Yaxha and they also shared some of their extra chocolate that they had brought back with them from the rewards challenge. They enjoyed their little visit, but Jamie didn't seem to want to stay for too long.

At the immunity challenge the teams had to break into two teams of five. Three members from each tribe had to run out one at a time to find one of twelve large puzzle pieces. Once all twelve pieces were returned, the remaining two survivors had to assemble a large puzzle. The first tribe to re-assemble their puzzle would win immunity. Nakum was the first team to get their puzzle assembled, sending Yaxha back to tribal council to vote off another member. This will drop Yaxha down to their final four members and will leave ten survivors left in the game. Could next week be the merge?

At Tribal council, Amy O'Hara was sent home. At Tribal council, Jeff added a new twist by sending the surviving Yaxha member to the Nakum Tribe's camp rather than their own. The game just went to the merge with it's final ten members.

Weekend Wrapup

* Survivor Toyland was an interesting read. Someone has a very interesting imagination. Needless to say that I was surfing the net and saw this.

* Mokie took his ACT this weekend. I was talking to him Saturday after he took it and he thinks he did well. It was a 5 hour examination and you could tell he was exhausted. He has a lot of motivation and drive, I'm looking foreword to the day he graduates from college.


Brittany had her homecoming dance this weekend. Kim and Mom drove up to Linsley so they could do her hair for the homecoming dance. I know she was very excited about being asked to go to the dance.

* Congratulations first go out to Michael Toth and his girlfriend. They are now the proud parents of a bouncing baby boy Christopher Michael Toth.

* Congratulations also go out to JD and Crissy Lewis for their little bundle of joy they received Saturday. They are the proud parents of a bouncing baby girl, Kara Danielle Lewis.

* The Morgantown High Mohigans ran their record to 9-0 on the season, WVU was cancelled because of Hurricane Katrina and the Pittsburgh Steelers manhandled the pathetic first place Cincinnati Bengals 27-13. The score was closer than the game.

* Weather has been rather bad all weekend, it's been rainy and dreary all weekend. This is the kind of weekend that you stay home and watch movies.

* Have a good week.

Survivor Guatemala

It's once again Thursday night, and it is once again time for Survivor. In the preshow it should be no surprise that Stephenie LaGrossa still once again has a very large lead in the favorite survivor poll.

As I recall from the previews last week, I think that a couple survivors actually got into a fight on this weeks show. However, I'll have to wait till the show starts to be able to see this.

The show starts with a little talk about what happened last week. Then comes the reward challenge, and Jeff announces that both tribes will be going to tribal council tonight. That means one member from Yaxha and one from Nakum would be going home tonight. In the battle of the women Yahxa wins a push of war. In the Men's battle Nakum won, and in the tie-breaker where it was one man and one woman Nakum takes a 2-1 lead. Then women going on women again, it was tied 2-2. In the final matchup Nakum wins the final one.

This also sends Yahxa to an individual immunity challenge where one player wasn;t going home tonight. The individual immunity challenge was a race for puzzle pieces to form a two word sentence. Rafe Judkins won the individual immunity challenge and is safe tonight at Tribal Council. Of course he had a little help from Judd who revealed to him the phrase was "Ancient Ruins". I think they should kick him off the game for helping someone out in an immunity challenge. Send him packing is my opinion.

Rafe does have another advantage tonight, not only will he sit in Nakum's Tribal Council, he has the opportunity to sit in on Yaxha's challenge.

At Nakum's Tribal Council, Judd was the complete ass that I said he was a few weeks ago. Unfortuantely, WVU Grad Margaret was sent packing. Personally, I would like to kick that loud mouth piece of shit Judd square in the nuts and choke the worthless piece of shit. If he makes it to the Merge, I'll boycott the show the rest of the way out. Attogant piece of Shit New York Doorman. His 15 minutes of fame are over with, get rid of him.

At Yaxha's Tribal Coouncil, Rafe was able to give immunity to one member of the yaxha tribe. His choice for immunity will remain a secret until the votes are cast. After the votes were cast, Brian Corridan was voted off.

Happy Birthday Brittany

Today is October 16th and it is my Neice Brittany's 15th Birthday. I don't know where the time has gone, but it seems like just yesterday they wheeled her out of the birthing room and she laid there as a newborn.

Talk about a little girl who just captures your heart, she is one that just being around her makes you forget your days troubles.

She is in town this weekend and I called her this mornign to wish her a Happy Birthday, but she was still catching some Z's and sleeping. Kim said that she would have her call me when she wakes up.

To say that watching this little girl grow up into a young beautiful woman is an understatement. She has managed to achieve academically and make the honor roll numerous times, and now she is enrolled at a very good prep school at Linsley.

Kim said she is going to go with John and Rita in a little while and they she won't see her much today. I'm sure Ed and his parents have a big day planned for this little treasure.

I just want to take these few minutes and wish Brittany the happiest of birthdays. I'll try to get her school e-mail address, but I think her home e-mail is dramaqueen@the-sanjulians.com but I'm not sure how often she checks that address. Updtae, her e-mail address is brittanydae@hotmail.com

Happy 15th Birthday Brittany Dae Cummings.

WOW, what a game

Wow what a game. 19th Ranked Louisville came into Morgantown in a battle for Big East Conference supremacy. WVU ws behind 24-7 in the 4th quarter and that set up the stage for a great comeback. We managed to push the game into overtime and managed to win it 46-44 in TRIPLE OVERTIME!!!!!

I have a funny feeling that some excess furniture might be burned in Morgantown tonight.

Survivor

Once again Survivor fans, it's Thursday night and you know what that means. It's time for the Steph-a-holics to unite for your weekly ritual once again and tune into CBS and enjoy the best reality show on television. You have to love this as a lead in to a new weekend.

On the pre-show poll watch, the sexy Stephenie LaGrossa once again enjoys a very large lead in the most popular survivor poll. She's pulling in 45% of the vote compared to second place Bobby Jon's10%.

At the start of the show, the great Margaret was discussing the shipdits Judd's betrayal of his original tribe last week at tribal council. Obviously he doesn'tr understand the power of the WVU alum and turned his back on it once again. Personally zI think the man should be dipped in honey and fed to bears.

For the rewards challenge they were playing for dinnner and a floating crocodile proof swimming cage. Yaxha and Nakum battled through a short obstacle course to obtain four handles. Once the four handles were obtained they were to be given to four other tribe members where they formed a big crank and pulled in a big wooden cart and to the finish line. Yahxa had one of the biggest margins of victory in any challenge that I think I have seen since I started watching survivor. Jamie Newton couild not manage to complete the first part of the rewards challenge obstacle by pounding a sharp rock through a rope.

This had to be a crushing blow to our heroine Steph, who just can't seem to have any luck at any rewards challenges or immunity challenges.

Once they returned from the immunity challenge, Judd was mouthing off to everyone and I think they need to assasinate his New Jersey rear end at dawn. I think he must be a Pitt fan, becasue he really is an arrogant pigs rectum. I never have liked hima nd will enjoy the day he is gone.

At the immunity challenge, the two tribes breaks into two groups of three survivors and basically play a big game of catch with a catapult and a net. The object was to fire a ball from the catapult and try to it. This looks a like a challenge where your team needs to work as a team to accomplish this feat. At the challenge Lydia Morales came up HUGE for Yaxha and allowed them to claim immunity. This will be only the second tribal council since Steph started playing the game last round that she will NOT be taking part in! Woo Hoo, we get Steph for another week.

Now that Nakum's winning streak is over with, they now have to make a trip to tribal council. If you ask me who I think will be going hime prior to council, I would have to say Frat Boy Blake Towsley, however they don;t have the numbers to vote him off, so this could be interesting to see who goes home.

At Tribal Council I was a little surprised to see that previous trival alliances didn't really matter and Frat "Golden Boy" Blake was voted off by a 4-3 vote.

OK, I'm guilty

I laid down last night about 7:00 and made the mistake of putting the TV on ABC. The Pittsburgh Steelers played on Monday Night Football. I guess there is something in the subconscience that says the Steelers game is on...WAKE UP.

I couldn't deny that inner voice and my body woke up and just wanted to check the progress of the game and I was going back to sleep....Right.

Next thing I know it's 1:00 and I'm trying to catch up on Big Ben's knee injury. I tried to lay down and go to sleep, but when I woke up and started watching the game I was done.

My alarm was supposed to go off a half an hour ago, but I'm still wide awake. So, I called the guy who rides with me and sent an e-mail to my boss, I'm taking a personal day and realxing.

It's a long stretch between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, and we are basically right in the middle of that stretch, so I guess now is as good as a time as ever to just take a day off.

Steelers Won!!!!

Back to work

The weekend is over and it was back to work in Frostburg. It was a fairly uneventful weekend for me, however I did manage to have a good day at work. I'm writing this program at work that's going to reduce some serious manhours on a very large project that we have.

It's called an AML (Arc Macro Language) and I have written a few smaller ones, but never one with so many variables that needed to be called. I'm not really a programmer like a few I know. I was quite happy with how this is developing.

Tonight may be a late night, the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to hammer the San Diego Wannabes tonight on Monday Night Football.

Survivor Night

Yes Blog readers, it is once again Thursday night and time for another episode of SURVIVOR!!!

In the preshow I checked out the popularity poll and Steph is winning by a large margin over a distant secondBobby Jon and third place Gary Hogeboom. Not really many surprises in the polls though other than the fact that the WVU Grad Margaret isn't winning the polls. You would think that people would realize that since Margaret graduated from WVU that she obviously deserves to win the popularity polls, and the Million Dollars. I guess that since no one is going to roll over and give her the win that she'll just have to beat everyone.

In the rewards challenge which was right after the start of the show, it turned out to be a trivia type thing when people on your tribe voted for specific things. They asked who needed the most nourishment, and the two tribe member who won were given some food. They asked who was the smelliest tribe member and they were given a shower. They then asked who was most deserving of a picnic, one man and one woman from each tribe. Then it was asked who had the most tribal pride, the most loyal member remained with their tribe and remaining survivors switched tribes. It's early in the game, but that was a nice little switch to throw at them, but I personally thought it was a little early in the game to pull a move like this.

During the pic nic, Margaret asked Gary once again if he was a former football player, and he once again denied that he is a retired NFL Quarterback and tried to play off that he is a landscaper.

I think if there were one survivor I would want to punch in the nose, it would have to be that sneaky snake in grass Judd, I don't know what it is about him, but I really don't like him even though he has sort of made an alliance with Steph.

For the Immunity Challenge the tribes had to paddle out and gather three bags that were full of clubs and then paddle back in to shore. They then had to throw the clubs at three targets that were 40, 50 and 60 yards away. No single tribe member could hit more than one target. You would think that an NFL QB would be the ace in the hole in this challenge. Nakum was the first tribe to reach the beach then followed by Yaxha. However Yaxha won immunity and sending Steph and Nakum back to tribal council yet again. You would winder though why Yaxha didn't have Gary throw? Man she has to be tired of going there....lol

Prior to tribal council the old Yaxha members and the old Nakum tribes who are now Nakum were trying to position for strategy. It was just announced Steph is 4 for 21 in challenges. However, the tribes are currently tied at 4 members from each other tribe and both sides were trying to jocky for position. I think that butthead Judd is the key to how this vote goes tonight, if he is stupid enough to join the old Yaxha members, he may eliminate a few of his team matess, but he would have sealed his fate for teh game by putting his tribe down on the numbers.

When all the votes were read, Brooke Struck was voted off.