Trippin': Atlanta - Centennial Park

265 Park Ave W
Atlanta, GA 30313

The most disappointing thing that me and the fam saw was prolly Centennial Park. Atlanta played host to the 1996 Summer Olympics Games. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Maybe the feeling of actually being at the Olympics? What it basically ended up being was a big and boring park. I was hoping to find maybe a sculpture of giant Olympic rings somewhere to take pics of and with but the only large rings were engraved into the ground with the dancing water coming out from it. Other than that, there was nothing else to it. Unless what makes you happy is looking at donor walls. Fortunately, no time was wasted trying to check this place out. We were already visiting the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coca-Cola that day and the Centennial Park was right across this small street.

Baby Shower: Leydi & Mike

This was the first of two baby showers in ONE weekend. It must a fertile year. Year of the OX! One of big poppa's workers is bursting at the seams. She's due any day now! She will be having her third girl. Crazy huh? I hope that I am lucky enough to be blessed with a little girl one day. The funny thing is that there a lot of kids that were there, and the girls out numbered the boys almost four to one. I was telling big poppa and his boss my theory that humans are similar to turtles where the sex is determined by the temperature of the nest. Pregnant women in hot climates will generate more females and women in colder climates will have more boys. That's why Alaska has more guys than girls. Haha! I know, I know. My claims have no merit.

Miss Hannah looks scared of big poppa but she was actually not too happy that I was snapping so many fotos of her.

Some of the many girls.

I had big poppa stand with them in hopes that it will inspire him to one day give me a girl. Haha!

Trippin': McAllen - Poncho's

808 N Cage Blvd
Pharr, TX 78577-3106

Upon our arrival in McAllen, and a quick nap (cos we're old like that), Miss Fabu treated us out to Poncho's. Some of her workers recommended this place to her, saying that it was a very good authentic Mexican restaurant. I'm all for authentic! When we sat down, we were never given any menus. Instead, the waiters suggested this combo fajita platter. It was almost like the Mexican omakase. Let's entrust our waiters to bring out the best they had for the day. We went ahead and agreed with the fajita combo platter. Right then, I thought to myself. This place can't be that authentic! Cos any Texan knows that fajita is a Tex-Mex concocted fare and not something you would find in most real and authentic Mexican haunts. Like 100% Taquito. Haha! In any case, the fajita combo came out on this giant platter, sizzling with all this deliciousness. It was frackin' GUT! The best authentic Tex-Mex I've ever had. My only complaint was that they didn't give us enough tortillas. We kept having to ask for more and every time, they would bring out like three at a time or something and it was NINE of us at the table. Stop being so stingy on the tortillas yo! My snowboard crew is so awesome. A bunch of them began piling any chicken fajita they saw closer to my side of the platter cos you know, I only eat chicken. So thanks guys for that! I totally heart y'all! But deep down, I'm sure most of them were thinking, more beef for us! Haha! As we were busy eating, a mariachi band came in and starting playing. Coolness! In the end, we were all super stuffed but we had to go and get stuff ready to barbecue that night for dinner. It was mos def a perfect start to a great weekend.

The sistars find the fajitas funny.

Who let this big Irish lad take meat from our side?!?

Vlog: Atlanta

I finally finished my video for the Atlanta trip. That whole video process thing is normally the first thing I jump on when I get back but it's been kinda crazy with back to back trips and what not. I make good use of my weekends that's for sure. This video is prolly my least fave by far. I don't think I did as good of a job as for my previous ones. I'm posting it even though I feel I can work on it a bit more. But whatevs. I still like it none-the-less cos it gives me a summary of all the things that took place that weekend. The song I used is one of my fave songs this year. Sometime Around Midnight by The Airborne Toxic Event, a group that big poppa intro'd me to. My favo song of the year is still hands down Greg Laswell's, Comes and Goes. Anyways, enjoy the vid!

Paw Pals: Spayed

My little Stewie was spayed a few months ago. Hours after she came back home, she was walking around like she didn't just have major surgery. What a soldier! The next day, she was jumping and doing this slight jog everywhere. I was worried her sutures would come apart. Luckily, she healed like Wolverine. I wish that she was a more affection cat. She has her sweet moments where she'll come up to me and asked to be pet and rubbed but mostly, she's running around and hiding and laying by herself. Miss independent! I also would like for her to gain more weight but judging by the amount of exercise that she puts herself through, I doubt she'll get fat any time soon. Take this morning for example. She was darting around the room in zig zags, making a LOT of noise in the process. She would jump and run across our sleeping bodies, go up onto the window ledge, jump down and run to her scratching post, do a quick burst of scratching, run back towards big poppa's side of the bed, run into the bathroom, jump onto the sink counter and then just sit and eat her food that we put there for her. Crazy right?!? Here are some pics of Stewie in her nice mode. I was petting her and when I stopped, she simply nestled herself up against my leg and a blanket and knocked out. It was so cute! You can see where they shaved her for the surgery. She's freaking HAIRY. Please do the right thing and spay/neuter your pet! I think they end up having a longer and less stressful life.

This is normally what she's doing. Stalking her unsuspecting victims.

Musik Mundi: Ingrid Michaelson

If you're a fan of Grey's Anatomy, then you should be familiar with Ingrid Michaelson. You should be if you're a music lover anyway. I got a chance to see Ingrid live at my much blogged about Hotel Cafe Tour with the all female line-up. She was great. Just as cute as she sounds. I only saw her play the piano/keyboard but she also is a guitar and ukele player also. Ugh. Jealous! I was listening to her Be OK album today and my conclusion is that it is mos def not as good as her previous album, Girls and Boys. But that's just me. Her new album drop next month, till then, here are some of her songs from my preferred album.

*photo courtesy of amazon.com*


Ingrid Michaelson
Album: Girls and Boys (2007)
Song: The Way I Am
Song: Breakable
Song: Die Alone

Daily Shots: Combo Update

Some different random fotos that I have sitting on my lappy that I want to blog about.

After seeing Swan Lake about a month ago, several of us met up with some of the snowboard crew over at Max's Wine Dive. Mascara's belly is getting so big! She looks incredibly cute preggars. It's all belly. I can't wait to find out the sex of the baby!

Here we are comparing big poppa's belly to Mascara's belly. Aging really sucks.

While pumping gas one day, big poppa and I were entertained by this guy riding around on his bike. Pretty normal right? Well, this guy had ghetto rigged his bike with this extra bed/ramp and also installed his own sound system. He had a tuner/stereo attached between his handle bars and wired it to blare out through a pair of megaphones. That is so awesome. Haha!

This is a group foto of me and some of my co-workers. We're in the Cardio field so hence our hand-shaped hearts.

The weekend after we came back from Atlanta, big poppa and I hopped right back onto a plane and headed to McAllen. We would be visiting Mascara, Transam, Fabulous and Rice Boy. Flower Child, Jacques and Gilles would also be coming into town. It was a spontaneous trip that was cooked up at 2am while at Max's. During the trip, I saw the abbreviation RGV everywhere and had no idea what that was. Now I realize it stands for Rio Grande Valley. And it also makes sense as to why people call it The Valley. Hah!

Boxes and boxes of diapers everywhere could only mean one thing. Back to back baby showers! More on that later. So many babies everywhere!