San Antonio

Lisa and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary last weekend (May 24th) in San Antonio. We decided we needed to get out of Houston and see some of the rest of Texas. We drove over to San Marcos first on Saturday, where we went to an outlet mall that was unbelievably huge. We both needed clothes and Lisa likes to shop, so it seemed like the thing to do. We then spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday and part of Monday in the city. Some highlights of the trip included the Mexican market, exploring the river walk and taking a boat tour, and stopping by the Alamo just to say we had been there. Our hotel was a Westin on the river walk and was the room was nice. Mom and Dad spoiled us with flowers and treats too!



The Mexican market was interesting because Mom and Dad apparently took a trip San Antonio about 20 years ago, where they bought some home decorations that I remember dusting many times during my stint as "key-tay." I saw the exact same vegetable hanging thing that is still in my parents kitchen (the one with the corn). Lisa and I bought a pepper one of our own for our kitchen.


You can check out all of the pictures from the trip by clicking the my photos link off to the right and looking at the San Antonio album. I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos. We forgot all of our cameras, so my cell phone's horrible camera had to record all of the memories for this trip.

White is not my color

Lisa and I are going to get some new clothes this weekend as we pass by a big outlet mall on our way to San Antonio. Earlier, we were talking about the trip to Disney this summer, and I realized that I might need some new clothes to wear in the scorching Orlando heat. I looked through the drawer of t-shirts I wear to exercise, and I found a bunch of white shirts that I have had forever. Out of curiosity, I looked up pictures of Disney 2004, and I have all of the same shirts!!!





I still have every single one of those shirts, and the swimming suit in the last picture is still my main suit. This tells me that not only have I not grown an inch since well before I was 18, I must not wear these shirts very often or they would have disintegrated by now.

I show Lisa these shirts, and she tells me I can not wear them to Disney 2009. I say this is crazy. I never wear white shirts, so it would make no sense to buy more. Also, who cares if I am wearing old shirts when everyone is going to be sweating and running around all day anyway? Weigh in on this important topic! Should I be allowed to wear them or not?

To make this fair, Bryan and Phil's votes count double.

Good News

Good news this week for two reasons...

I finished my block 5 exams last week and had a good two days off. The exams went well enough, but I won't find out my grades for a few days still. The better news is that our noise problem has been solved! If you haven't been down to visit, I will explain...

The apartment tower next to us has a single air conditioning tower for their entire building, which was built at the end of their parking garage. This building is about 25 stories high and its air conditioner is huge. Later, our apartment building was constructed such that our apartment is within 50 ft or so of this huge air conditioning unit. We picked out our first apartment without knowing that it was there, so it was quite a shock last summer when we first moved in and heard this thing running. We eventually got used to it, so much so that we decided to move to an apartment on the same side of our complex even though we know how loud the noise is. In summer, we have our windows shut anyway, and in winter the thing shuts off completely for a few months.

After we moved, a new person moved into our old unit and was shocked with the nose as well. We know this because a manager at our complex asked us what we thought about the noise when the guy wanted them to pay for him to move across the complex. I guess he decided to stay put and a few weeks later he slipped a note under everyone's door on our side of the complex. Apparently, he had called the police and they did determine that the air conditioner violated the sound limit for both day and night time by more than 10 decibels (5 times louder than legally allowed). He filed complaints with the mayor's office and wanted all of us to do the same.

We decided we did not care enough to call and complain, but a few days ago I saw some guys doing work on the air conditioner, and now it has become substantially quieter! It is now quiet enough for us to use our balcony, and we can barely hear it at all when we are inside. It turns out that the squeaky wheel does get the grease.