Feb 25, 2015 - Office Remodel

I ended up moving around some of the furniture in my office to make the space more efficient. I think it turned out really well.

Feb 28, 2015 - Birmingham Visit

Jillian's friend, Sally, recently had her second child so we went up there for a visit. The trip to their house was short and sweet. We were done with the visit pretty early on Saturday, so Jillian decided to fill the rest of the day with showing me significant places in town from her childhood; Including where she grew up, her schools and church.
Mountain Brook is an interesting area. It's a landlocked division of Birmingham, now filled mostly with the top of the upper class. Some of the homes are unreal. We had to drive to the outskirts to see the home in which she grew up. Begrudgingly, she even had me walk around their yard while the current home-owners were present. Afterward we made a quick stop at her high school, which looked like a community college. We walked around the baseball fields and then drove by the soccer fields where she once played. I forgot that before the high school stop, we ate lunch at her favorite pizza place growing up. I can see why they went there after sporting events. I cozy little place with good pizza and a little arcade hidden away in the back. To finish off the tour, we stopped at a "home-made sorbet and ices" stand, called Doodle's, a few miles from where her father currently lives. I'm not sure what "ices" is exactly but, after a short adjustment period, the taste grows on you.
Sunday morning, before we hit the road again, we stopped went to her childhood church for its traditional service. It was very enjoyable, though a couple of moments were unusual to me. Apparently, the new pastor liked to walk into the middle of the congregation for parts of the bible readings, which basically forced everyone in the building to look at each other. I thought it was distracting. Still, a beautiful church and Jillian got to briefly catch up with a few of the parishioners that she had known from when she regularly attended.
The trip was great, though short. I would have liked to have caught up with some of our friends that live in the area, but there wasn't time. I was glad to have finally seen where Jillian spent her early years though.

Valentine's Day 2015

Looking at the picture above, you can probably guess who purchased and wrapped the two sets of presents above. I'll admit that I'm not one for putting a lot of effort into gift presentation. For this Valentine's Day, I had a pretty easy job. Jillian had asked for a specific ring with a gaelic design that she could wear to work instead of her engagement/wedding ring. A few minutes of online shopping did the trick.
She on the other hand put a lot more effort into her gift. For years, while driving down hwy 181 from Daphne to Fairhope, I had pointed out an old wooden house under a giant oak tree that I had always wanted to photograph in some good lighting. As I had never had the motivation to do so and the building has all but collapsed, the time had elapsed for me to do so. Being the wonderful person she is, my wife had actually found a photographer who had taken said picture and bought two prints. One for my man-cave and a smaller version for my office. It was a sweet surprise.
As we had done a few years ago, we decided to brave the Mardi Gras traffic in Mobile and have Valentine's Day dinner at a restaurant downtown called Cafe 615. The traffic getting there wasn't as bad as I remember, but the atmosphere was worse. We ended up seated by a table of about 12 drunk college-aged girls; one of which enjoyed showing off how well she could sing whatever pop song came to mind. Quiet seating was not really an option and it was unreasonable to complain considering half of their patrons had just come off the streets from parades. I was grateful that the food was worth the hassle.
After we ate, we caught the tail-end of the last parade of the night. It was enjoyable even though I don't think we caught anything... at least worth keeping. The traffic getting back across the bay was awful. I could have done without that part. I think next year we'll opt to stay a little closer to home and avoid parades all together.

Feb 21, 2015 - Electrical Fire

The 21st of February was a super windy Saturday. Like, hurricane winds. Jillian and I took her car to the Toyota dealership to have some parts replaced that were under warranty. We did a little shopping, started back home and upon turning into our neighborhood noticed that there were multiple fire trucks and bystanders at the end of the street we live off of. We parked, grabbed Stella, and started to walk toward the action. Turns out, the wind was so bad that it had snapped one of the giant power lines behind a neighbors house and set the woods on fire. We weren't in time to witness any of the fire, but I did get some pictures of what remained. Thankfully, no one really lost anything; just some charred fences.

It was clear when we walked back home that power was out in our house, for obvious reasons. What we didn't know, as we left to go grab some lunch, was that power was out for half of the city. The restaurants that had power were completely packed, so we ended up eating at Bass Pro Shop in Spanish Fort. Knowing the power would likely be out for the rest of the day, we did some more shopping. Luckily, they had restored power before we went to bed that night. It was an interesting event for an otherwise boring day.

Feb 17, 2015 - Garage Organization

For a while now, Jillian and I have been doing a little pre-planning for having kids. Part of that included cleaning out a room for baby stuff. To accomplish the task, we needed to box some things and put them in the garage; but there wasn't sufficient space. Six months, or so, ago we had purchased some metal hooks/racks at a garage sale for super cheap so we decided it was a good time to use them. Here's the results.