The Great Pumpkin Massacre

Who doesn't love fajitas? Who doesn't love guttin' pumpkins, making a mess and carvin' Jack-O-Lanterns!? We did a lot of all that last Saturday. Had peeps over from our old and new home group and of course family. It was nice outside, but got pretty cool pretty quick and moved things inside. Brian and Jean were going for a half moon face with stars, but they taped the template on sideways. Their error still seemed to work and it looked like a starry eyes suprise...the stars ended up being eyes and the 1/2 moon was a smile. Daryl carved a big goofy smile that goes well with him! Cindy and Sam carved a patriotic America flag with stars. Holly carved some spooky bats with a bell tower...the bell tower didnt last long. The pumpkin got a bit juicey the day after and the bell tower was the first thing to go. Vick carved a dargon, but started a late and didn't finish it that night. I went with a spider and web for my pumpkin. Aside from fajitas and nachos, Tanya brought some yummy gluten free Choco-Chip cookies. Brian and Jean brought an awesome pecan pie and some Vanilla yogurt/ice-cream that was delish!

Check out all the pics HERE.

Craig and Corrie's 80's Halloween Party

Last Friday, the 28th, we finally made it to a Ruppel Halloween bash. Knew it was coming and we would go, but in typical Garcia fashion, we waited until the day before to work on our homemade costumes. Holly was of course looking to dress up as the typical 80's chick with leg-warmers and pig tail on the side. My first thought was Ghostbusters, then Magnum PI (thought all i would need was a Hawaiian shirt and huge mustache. Then I thought about a Rubik's cube which lead me to Pac-Man. With Pac-Man, I thought Holly could be a ghost and she liked the idea. After a couple trips to Holly Lobby and Home Depot, we had what we needed and got to work.

Holly just bought about 6 yds of blue (Inky the ghost) cloth and sewed a loop along one end...did that to 2 different pieces of cloth. Then she just cut them into strips with her roller-BLADE...she came close to slicing off one of Tiger II's paws who kept attack her cloth. Pac-Man was made with 2 pieces of board cut into circles and the removed a piece of pizza from each. Used wire to sort of piece them together and spray painted it yellow. Used large sheets of construction paper to cover the front and a lot of staples from my staple gun.

Our hats off to Craig and Corrie for a great party. Played the name game, where a famous 80's character or person's name is taped to your back. You don't know who you are and you have to ask people Yes/No questions to try and figure out who you are. Took me a while, but I figured out I was Willis Drummond from Different Strokes. Holly took a bit longer but finally figured out she was Daisy Dukes from the Dukes of Hazzard. By the end of the night, the Ruppel's dog, Daisy, was wearing everyones name on her back. I never touched Craig's famous Punch of Death, but he and his friends and played some 80s tunes, and I had a pretty good idea what a Punch of Death felt like. Nyuck-nyuck.

Check out all our pics HERE. Here is Craig and his band playing Centerfold from the J. Giles Band...there are a couple more tunes on my YouTube page HERE. Oh and by the way...Pac-Man just BARELY edged out the Rubik's Cube to win the Best Costume Award! The prize? A bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold Margarita (Classic Lime). Holly was thrilled.

Orionid Meteor Shower

Little did I know, but apparently there is an annual Orionid Meteor Shower. This year it happened on October 21, 2007. Holly and I looked at a few maps of the stars to figure out where to look for the meteors. Finally learned a little something about the Orion constellation. Always knew about Orion's belt, but didn't know much beyond that. The origin of the meteor shower was supposed to be between Orion's left shoulder and Mars...looked but could not find Mars. We were looking in the right place though! Got up at 4AM early Sunday morning and hung outside for about 30-40 minutes and saw at least 8 or more "shooting stars." Haven't tried taking many night time pics, but I took my camera out and took some pics of Orion and Ursa Major/Minor...the Dippers. There was also a really really bright star I took a pic of...meant to search and see if I could figure out which star/planet it was, but never got to it. At first we thought it was a plane coming in...and after a while realized it wasn't getting any closer. It was fun and was a nice night, but we were dead the next morning at church.

Baby's First Constellation Photos

Chevelle at Stubb's

Woohoo!! Finally got to see Chevelle in concert. Bought tickets way back in March, but the band's trailer with all their gear was stolen just before the concert so it was cancelled. Finally was rescheduled for 10/18 -- and just my luck it landed on a Thursday night. Our IBM flag football league plays on Thursday nights. So we played our game at 8pm, concert started at 7:30. Finished right around 9pm and hauled butt downtown to Stubb's. Kara, Vick and Mike and joined us and as we walked up to the place, we heard them starting so we didnt miss anything.

Man, these dudes were awesome. Its mostly the front man Pete Loeffler. He does most if not all the writing and the sound he gets with his Mesa Boogie and his baritone guitars in dropped A# tuning is sweet. Only thing that sucks about that is it his hard to play with a standard guitar...so I don't even try. Awesome concert though. Mike was trippin' on some guy who had a chicken head/wing thing going. Hopefully they come near us again soon. Would like to get there early next time and get further up to the stage.

I Take It Back...

Dolphins fans suck. Yeah sure, all of them. Apparently all Raider fans are thugs, so might as well group all Phins fans as jerkfaces. When I said they were nice earlier, I meant they didn't say anything to us. The guy we had some good banter with was sitting with his family, one of them was a Giants fan and the other was a Raiders fan. So they were fun. The people right next to us were Dolphin "fans" but they weren't even wearing any Dolphin gear...just regular t-shirts. I think most the crowd there was just scared of all the Silver and Black, they were trying to go unnoticed in their own stadium. Can't blame them though, the Raider Nation is bunch of thugs.

I'm being facetious of course, but some buttwads were throwing rocks and bottles at our team bus after the game on Sunday! >:|

From the PalmBeachPost.com:

Bottle shatters window of Raiders team bus

Monday, October 01, 2007

Police are investigating a post-game incident at Dolphin Stadium in which fans threw rocks and at least one bottle at an Oakland Raiders team bus, even though it was being escorted by members of the Broward Sheriff's office, according to authorities.

A bottle shattered a window of the bus, which was carrying Raiders staff members but not players, Miami-Dade Police spokeswoman Nelda Fonticiella said.

She said police suspected a group of fans standing at a tailgate site but could not make an arrest in the incident, which took place at Gate 1A at 5:45 p.m. Sunday.

"There were a lot of people, but nobody was able to point out one particular person that had done it," Fonticiella said. "We are getting together with the stadium to see if they have video cameras in that area." Dolphin Stadium spokesman George Torres said officials are contemplating beefing up security around the gate used by visiting teams.

"Certainly that's not something we've had here before, and we certainly don't want it to occur again," he said.

Digital Cameras Are Fun

Alrighty...here are all the pics from our vacation. There are tons. So much fun to just snap off pic after pic, especially at the game.

• Florida Pics (174): The resort, Old Town in Kissimmee, Disney World and Cocoa Beach
• Raiders Pre-Game Pics (92): Tailgating at Dolphin Stadium with Raider fans and pre-game warm-up from inside, including the maintenance on the field from the downpour that started just before the game
• Raiders 1st Qtr Pics (62): Raiders vs. Dolphins
• Raiders 2nd and 3rd Qtr Pics (104): Raiders vs. Dolphins
• Raiders 4th Qtr Pics (119): Final quarter of the 35-17 Raider victory!

By the way, the "Dol-fans" were very good hosts. Not many fans were in attendance, but thats what happens when you are 3-0. The fans we came across were all good sports and we had some good back and fourth banter until the 2nd half when it was clear the Raiders were not going to give the game away as usual.

Thanks Dol-fans! Oh, but there is no avoiding it...their "fight song" is the lamest thing I have ever heard. As one guy put it, this is the coolest song....from 1970. I guess with all the old farts in Florida they won't be changing it any time soon.

Raiders 35, Dolphins 17 -- w00t!!1!

The fun is gone...but oh what fun it is to ride a 35-17 victory over the Miami Dolphins! Nothing but WINS this week. I missed the season opener of our IBM Flag Football league, that sucked. The guys didn't miss a beat though and our team won 13-0. We bought our time-share. The Raiders kicked major booty down in Miami...it was an amazing game. It was almost like a home game. Clear across the country, opposite coast...and there were tons of Raider fans out there supporting their team. These are die hard fans man. I mean, look at our team. Probably the worst Super Bowl hangover in history. Last year we won only 2 games. We start off 0-2 this year and yet, an away game on the opposite end of North America and our fans were out there in huge numbers. The tailgating was great. The group of wrestlers were hilarious. I love the pic of Mean Gene Okerlund interviewing us. The Hulkster was great...he studied The Hulk and had him down pat. Gorilla Rilla was in the hizzy. We were worried about walking around in Dolphin country, but everywhere we looked we could see Silver and Black.

I already watched the replay of the game when I got home and it was great to hear the loud cheering in the Miami stands when the Raiders scored or made a great play. The rain was crazy...but it felt nice. Almost got a little too cold there for a while. By the time the sun came out in full force during the 3rd quarter, we were really wishing the rain would come back. Raiders finally gave us a great game. Jordan and Fargas kicked butt. The zone blocking scheme and new OL coach are coming together. Our boy Cooper Carlisle played a great game. He played the zone blocking scheme in Denver (boo!) and looks like its paying off here. Culpepper didn't show much as far as passing, thankfully he didn't have too, but he got the job done and didn't turn the ball over. He accounted for all 5 of our TDs. Ran 3 in and threw for another 2. Technically he threw 3 TDs, but one was called back for offensive pass interference. It looked bogus to me during the game. I replayed it when I got home, and yup, it was bogus. Raiders won though, 35-17...can't get over that score.


So yeah....flag football win, went to Disney World, bought a time-share, Cocoa Beach, Miami, Raiders kicked butt, what an awesome week!! Oh! Oh! Oh! To top it all off. After the game, our last night and we are sitting in the hotel room chillaxing and watching some more football and then we see a football score update:

Kansas City Chiefs 30, San Diego Chargers 17

Haha...oh man, that gave me a great laugh. Stoopid Chargers. I'm happy for Beth and her Chiefs to stick it to the Dolts. Hehe.

I'll be right back with all our photos from the last week. There are TONS!