Acoustic Jam

Stopped by my buddy's place (Chuck) after work for a quick acoustic jam. Played some Pearl Jam and Live. Heres what we ended up doing with Better Man. We're gonna keep working on this one for a while. We have a blog with all our jams and what we are working on. Its linked in the menu to the right: JamBlog. We got some other vids there with the full band.

Eli's Longhorns Desktop

Made this desktop background (1024x768) out of the pics I took at Eli's basketball game. Eli play for the Ft.Bliss Longhorns and wears #5. Click on it for the full view then just right click and "save as."

How the?

Freaking cool...we fixed our washing machine. Total cost: $20. Found the help I needed to diagnose and replace the broken part (a broken motor coupling) at http://www.applianceaid.com/. Had absolutely ZERO knowledge of washing machines and was 2 minutes away from calling Sears service when I came across that site. We took apart our washer and freaked a little cause we weren't sure we'd even be able to put it back together. Somehow though, got the replacement part and got it all put back together. It is even clean now...like brand new! Actually cost was $30...since I gave a donation to the Appliance Aid website. Pretty sure I got the better end of the deal.

What are we thinking!?

Well, we got home from our trip to El Paso and the last load of laundry Holly did was soaked. The spin cycle no longer spins. She showed me the prob, and the motor makes a noise, but no spinnie. Here is how little I know of my washer, and all washers in general. First thing I thought was, "Dang...guess we need to call Sears to come fix it." Then I thought, "Well, maybe its just a broken belt." I decided to just take apart and take a looksie. So we randomly started taking it apart and I finally got online to look up what was going on. After a lot of searching I learn my washer is a direct drive washer, apparently there is no belt. I also learn that a common prob for this washer is that the "motor coupling" breaks or is just worn out. We've had our Kenmore washer/dryer for about 8 years. I think we had the dryer serviced once. So I'm hoping this is the problem. The washer is already taken apart at this point and we just took the opportunity to start cleaning it, gross. But now I know what I am looking for. So after removing the 2 wrong brackets holding the water pump, I replace them and remove the brackets holding the motor. After finally getting the motor off, lo and behold, the motor coupling is broken! Looks to be a $15 part...so just got to find it now. Sears doesn't have parts at their store here. Will look tomorrow to see if a place in town has the part I need. If not, I have to order from Sears online and play the waiting the game.

Hope we didn't just kill our washer.

El Paso Weekend

Finally went back home for a visit. We left Wednesday night around 5pm and arrived around 2:30am. The short amount of time that we had daylight resulted in a very low scoring Deer Game. If you don't know what the deer game is, heres the quick break down. Easy way to make a long boring drive more bearable is to be competitive and see who can count the most dead deer on the road. It has to be dead and must clearly be, or used to be, a deer...some corpses can be so mangled and decayed you just can't say for sure. Well, I beat Holly 26-20...but we only had about 2-3 hours of light. On the way back we set a record. Mike scored 20. Holly scored 87. I set a new game record and counted 90!

As for the trip, it was great. Thursday played golf with my pops at the new Butterfield Trail Golf Course. I scored an eagle and a birdie, I think a couple pars and plenty of bogies and doubles. Not sure what the final score was because I forgot the scorecard on the golf cart. I think my pops beat me as usual.

Friday we went to see 10,000 B.C. with Holly's dad and Mike. Then we went over to the Chico's on Dyer for some lunch. Also got me a Chico's shirt there. Later we went to watch my lil' bro Eli play basketball with his team at Ft.Bliss, the Longhorns. Hes a shutdown defensive player...the X factor. His tounge pops out a la Michael Jordan...you can see it in the photo album on some of the pics where he has the ball. He also does that when hes playing Halo or Guitar Hero. Later that night he beat me and Isaiah in a Halo 3 slayer match.

Saturday was just more time visiting family...the Grandmas and parents. While visiting my Grandma Licha, lil Gen went to bathroom and yanked on the emergency cord for when old people fall down and can't get up. We heard the alarm not really knowing what it was, sounded like a school fire alarm. Finally my Grandma realized what it was and we rushed to the bathroom. We turned it off after about 20 secs or so...no one ever came to check in.

Last drive home to Holly's parents we took Transmountain Drive and snapped a few pics. Those mountains are the most beautiful part of El Paso. Next time there we need to go do some hiking up there. Finally got a pic of the wooly mammoth frozen in stone...Manfred. And that was it. Drove back home very early Sunday morning and that was when I scored a world record in the Deer Game.

You can check out all the bball, family and mountain pics at the Photo Album.

Blake and Fallon

When we last left our heroes they had just arrived back home from taking the doggies to Walnut Creek Park. With moments to spare we got ready for dinner at County Line on the Lake with Vick. We went there to eat (duh) and then hang out on the patio and enjoy the live tunes of Blake and Fallon. Holly and the BBQ Sausage and I enjoyed me some brisket tacos. Oh, and of course we ordered a basket of the bread with the honey butter. MMMM!

After dinner we moseyed on out to the patio to here some live music. They both make their guitars sound amazing and Franklin has great voice, it has a country twang, but for some reason I really like it. Vick bought himself Fallon's Red Lights CD and Holly scored herself a tee. It was wee bit chilly on the patio, but once the sun was down the breeze also died down and it ended up being a nice night. We'll probably be head down to see them there again in May, so if your interested let us know! My dumb camera was all whack that night. First pick I took, Fallon looked over and gave a thumbs-up...and the dumb camera wouldn't focus to take the pic! Felt like such a maroon. She gave me a peace sign when I finally got it right.

We got a chance to chat with both of them after the show and had a really good time. We've chatted with Fallon before and got her experience on America's Got Talent. As if we David Hasselhoff wasn't annoying enough, we really disgusts us now. Anyway, we finally got a chance to talk to Blake too, both are really great and easy to talk to. Asked Fallon about their acoustic sound. They both play Martin guitars, clean for the acoustic set...she mention Blake uses some reverb. If anyone is listening, feel free to hook me up with a Martin electric/acoustic for my b-day. Its a grip, but you got time to save up. Sweet, thanks.

Also tried to get some vid...but it came out pretty crappy cause it was night and there a lot of static. Here it is though (it sounds WAY better in person):

Doggies Playing at Walnut Creek Park

Well, we have been wanting to take the doggies to Walnut Creek Park. I go there to ride my bike when I can. They have some really fun trails to ride. Saturday morning we woke up around 11AM and finally headed out to WCP with T-Bone and Jezebel. They were in heaven! Both doggies lubbed it.

T-Bone is a super-fantastic-awesome dog who can be trusted off-leash and he enjoyed being able to run around following or leading us. Jeze is our little A.D.D. girl who CAN'T be trusted off leash...she zones out when she gets to running and she just runs and runs and has no clue whats going on around her. She is getting older, though, and is more relaxed...and Saturday in the middle of the trails playing in the creek, we decided to give it a try. She did good. Played in the water and sniffed other doggies as usual. Then some lady with a billion dogs passed by and Jeze took off with them. Holly freaked, but we got Jeze back just fine.

Got some really good pics...you can check out the Photo Album here. Dogs were pooped and crashed out in truck and were dead the rest of the day. Our day was just getting started...

Laugh Out Loud Thursday

Thursday night we went out to the Cap City Comedy Club to check out Doug Benson. Hes always made us laugh on VH1's Best Week Ever and he was great on last season's Last Comic Standing. Graham Elwood (didn't recognize the name, but he seemed really familiar) was the opener and was pretty flippin' hilarious. Dude had tons of energy and seemed to just flow feed off the crowd. It was a super fantastic fun time. Had a smile/laugh headache by the end of the night. We had a quick lil' chat with Doug on the way out and he signed one of freebie cards for us!
Apparently Doug could tell we were crazy for the Mary Jane :)

Cheerleading Nieces

Just got this vid from my sis. Our nieces Belle and Gen just performed their pom routine at their awards ceremony. Thinks for vid Mari...wish we could've been there!