Three Words Back...

Oh June....June? June??? Where Did You Go?

I swear it was just April...and now we're a day and a half from July.  Time flies when you're waffling on where to house your website I guess.

I survived another campout at Lake Texoma.  I was neither devoured by wild beast nor bested by the poisons found in the cabin.  The annual camping trip is always a tough one to recap, so suffice to say that a good time was had by all.  We left some water in the lake and a little bit of sand on the shore, but took our fair share of the weekend's UV rays home on our shoulders and knee caps.  Oh, and I canoed for the first time ever, so there was that.

Today has been pretty laid back.  I went to Curt and Amy's church this morning before getting a mini-photography seminar from Amy.  Maybe now I can get the lens cap all the way off before pressing the silver button.  We're grilling out tonight, and then I'll spend my last day of Texas vacation tomorrow driving around Dallas / Ft. Worth to see some (but not all) of my DFW friends.

Porque The Delay on the Vacay?

Dear American Eagle,

So....you're delaying my flight to Chicago why, exactly?  I mean, I heard you say it was due to the weather in the Windy City, but my source tells me that it hasn't rained in Chicago for at least four hours.  What gives?

(And if, as I secretly suspect, it is all a clever ruse on the part of the cute baggage claim clerk who just so happened to transfer to my departure gate right after I made it through security....then she needs to hurry up and make a move because time?  It's a wastin'....)

Sincerely,

The Guy in the Wrinkled Blue Shirt at Gate 3

PS - Thanks for not running me through the new security scanners that let people see through my clothes.  I expect the peeping toms in Dallas won't be nearly so old-fashioned.

**UPDATE** 8:28 pm

So, that was a few hours ago.  Now I'm chilling at a Chili's at Chicago O'Hare.  The extended pilot smoke break, er, Chicago weather issues that is, ended about 120 seconds after I paid $3.95 for a second hour of internet time and we started boarding about an hour later than scheduled.  No biggie, as scheduled I had a three hour layover to cushion the wait.  From my window seat in 10A, I saw nothing but sunshine and a few lazy clouds all the way to Chi-town, so again, dear American Airlines, WTF?

And waiting to greet me all throughout the O'Hare concourse was every. breathing. person. in. town.  Maybe the wind blew them in, I don't know, but this airport is packed to the gills.  I get the feeling that everyone is arriving late for connecting flights and/or dealing with delays.  Good times.  Nothing makes for an even more pleasant airport experience than over-crowding and grumpty, impatient travelers.  Lucky for me, I'm on vacation with time to kill and sipping on my second margarita while the cook slaves over my chicken crispers.

Until next time, faithful readers, until next time.

Vacation Eve

Things I did after work tonight:

• Hosted a conference call (from the branch).
• Picked up one last gloriously fantastic burger from Five Guys.
• Checked email while watching reruns of The Office on TBS.

Things I should have been doing incrementally throughout the week:

• Packing for my vacation.  In TEXAS.  I fly out tomorrow afternoon.

Things that will keep me up for the next few hours:

• (see above)

Number of items I should have at the ready before incorporating bullet points:

• two
• (preferably three)

Okay, enough of that.  A packed suitcase = going to bed soon...and as it stands now the only things packed neatly in my suitcase are some mixmatched socks and a pair of jeans.  Everything else is in the dirty pile, the kind-of-dirty pile, the clean-if-I-absolutely-need-it-to-be pile, or the newly laundered pile that's anchoring down the side of the bed that I don't sleep on.

Anyone else care to share the names of your own various laundry piles?

Change, Change, Change

So, new color scheme.  But no new site.  At least not for now.  I like what I created with my Mac, but (of all things) I didn't care for the blogging setup that's built into it, so for now I'm staying here.  Plus I'm sappy and sentimental, so that part of me hated to give up this space.  It's like my favorite pair of jeans at this point - comfy and worn in.  And I'd hate to have to re-train the 17 people that surf over here to adjust their bookmarks and / or update links from their blogs.

I also added a few new gadgets to the columns.  You can link over to Pandora and dig into some cool music.  It's a great site for finding music similar to stuff you already like.  This is the site that keeps you from saying, "Why didn't anyone ever tell me about THIS BAND?!"  The internet dropped another cool map feature I had added in the wee hours of the morning, so that will be re-added when I get home from work today.  Oh, and the Community and I Support sections have been / will be updated as well.

So faithful readers, those who have stuck around through think and thin, through song lyrics and laundry excursions, through travelogues and lengthy ramblings....stick around a little longer, will you?  I'll do my best to make this an interesting place to spend a few minutes.

Don't Act Like You Don't Remember The Hand Signals

By watching the following video, you agree to not hold me responsible should any of the following occur:

• You find yourself googling "men's dance unitard"
• You dig that old pair of parachute pants out of the attic.
• You randomly chant "Get buck...get buck / get buck / get buck" throughout the day.
• You check back later this week for info on the new site.

Hearts and Blogs They Fade, Fade Away....

Tonight's blog had the working title No Matter What I Title This Last Post, I'll Think of Something Better Tomorrow...and for the last month I've been changing and re-changing my mind (on the title, on the content, on everything but the font color...)  But here it is, folks, the swan song of Three Words Back.

I've barely announced that it's over, and already I miss certain aspects of having this blog - the spark of an idea, the physical need to sit down and get it all out on "paper", the discipline required to spend an extra five or fifty minutes to find the very best way to say it, and the pride in reading the finished product for the twentieth time and knowing that it reads exactly the way it feels.  In fact, the two minutes spent in putting together that first run-on sentence was almost enough to make me re-think the whole thing...but the fact that it's even a question in my mind tells me all I really need to know - that it's time to retire the space known as Three Words Back.

This blog has been a lot of fun to write for and maintain.  It started out as a cheap form of therapy for my particular case of the "quarter-life crisis" and evolved into a great creative outlet and a way to keep tabs with friends - some of which I would not have met without the blog.  Whether I wrote anything or not, this site has been an integral part of my daily life for the last three years....but it's time to cut the chord and move on.

"Move on to what, exactly?" I hear you asking your monitor.  Well, I've got some ideas.  Ideas that won't come to fruition at this particular website.  But I do have the lease on this one paid up for a while, so sooner or later I'll post some news about the next site.

Thanks for reading, and don't be an internet stranger.