Holden Beach Vacation Part 1

After a midly stressful flight with two very anxious kids we arrived at the Raleigh Durham International Airport. It was raining when we landed but the temperature was a perfect 74 degrees. I went to pick up the rental car while Angela and Maile waited at the baggage claim. It took forever to get the minivan but when I pulled up to the pick-up to see where Angela was they were just getting out with the luggage. Nice timing!

After flying most of the day the kids weren't up for another 4 hour drive to Holden Beach but we pressed on, screaming kids (Christian) and all. We finally arrived at our destination after 14 hours of total travel. The following day Shane's sod came so, with the help of David, my dad, and the Elders we got it laid down. The sod they use here is Centipede, its a larger blade than the Kentucky Bluegrass we use in Utah.

Here's another shot of the front of the house with the first patch of sod we laid down. Notice the two fingers at the top of the picture because I'm too lazy to crop them out right now. It didn't rain today, but the temperature stayed in the mid 70's - perfect, in my opinion.

New Camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I got a new Olympus digital camera. I'm really excited to start taking pictures again especially now that it's springtime. I have only had the camera for a couple days but so far I'm pretty impressed with it. I decided to go with the Olympus Evolt e-500. I took the previous blog picture (buddha baby) with the new camera. I'll be taking a lot more and posting some of them up here. I also started a new web page through my ISP provider (comcast) located at http://home.comcast.net/~hagoth. I'll probably be posting most of the pictures there.

On a side note I increased my maximum benchpress weight up to 335lbs today - YEAH! I tried to get 345lbs up but I was too weak on the left side and required a little help from Eric who was spotting me. He said he didn't help very much and that I should be able to get 345 up soon.

A picture of me and the buddha baby

Currently reading:

XBOX 360 Overheating

My Xbox 360 is broken! My fear of my 360 overheating unfortunately came true. It all started with my Xbox locking up a couple times last month and then last week it happened every time I turned it on. I called Microsoft and they said it was still under warranty and sent out a box for me to ship it in. I just received an email from them stating that I should be getting it back on Friday just in time for the weekend. Hopefully this doesn't happen again, but if it does at least Microsoft is good and quick about fixing it.

Brother and sister.

We had a healthy baby boy on February 22, 2006 - Christian Ikaika Lelepali. Named after his father's hero and brother. So far he's been a pleasure. My little man!

I Finally did it...

Ever since High School I have wanted to be able to benchpress 3 plates - 315lbs. I finally did it last week with Ammon, Adam, and Sam as my witnesses. I am pretty proud of myself considering about 6 months ago I was having trouble putting up anything over 245. I owe it all to hard work, Dymatize Mega Milk (protein shake), Cytosport Muscle Milk (protein shake), and Xpand (creatine) and my buddies from work who kept pushing me. My next goal: 400...

I installed some Aura Bass Shakers in the Walmart recliners I got for Christmas - they work pretty darn well!

I got some new posters for the room. I now have a comic book superhero theme going on. Check em out.

Vonage pwns Qwest

I finally dropped Qwest and picked up Vonage. The first thought that crossed my mind when I got it hooked up and running was "why didn't I do this sooner?" I got a free router and 1 month free service for signing up. I've noticed that the calls are a lot clearer with Vonage than Qwest. I used to get a lot of static before and now it's gone. I also like the Voicemail feature. Vonage will email me an mp3 attachment of each voicemail as it comes in. This means I can hear my voicemail from my laptop while at work and not have to wait until I get home or dial in. Another feature that I think is cool is the ability to move my router to any location with a broadband internet connection and be able to use a phone with that router as if I was at home. In other words, the router is my phone line. This means I can take my router with me on vacation and receive and make calls from it as if I were at home. The best part about Vonage is the cost. I am paying about 50% less to Vonage for more features than I did with Qwest. I would highly recommend Vonage to anybody considering it.

Zero Hour Pics

The developers of the game "Gears of War" demo'd a couple of the levels from the game. It looks to be the best looking 360 game so far but will not be out until March 2006.

Zero Hour Pics

Me playing one of the new games 'Condemned'. Pretty sweet, but also very dark - almost like a CSI meets Seven.

More Zero Hour Pics

Here is the inside of the hangar where the Xbox's were set up in different stations.

XBOX 360 Zero Hour Pt. 1

After almost a 10 hour drive we arrived in Palmdale, CA - Lockheed site of the Xbox 360 Zero Hour launch event. There were a lot of people there and it was cold outside. Here are some of the pictures that I took:

F.E.A.R. & Battlefield 2

Instead of my ritualistic weekend of playing World of Warcraft till the wee hours of the morning, I decided to download 2 games that are soon coming out. F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Response Recon) and Battlefield 2. After playing World of Warcraft for almost 4 months it's hard to find a game that holds my attention as much as WoW has. That said I was pleasantly surprised to discover that both of these games were actually fun. I did not play either for a very long period of time but first reaction was good. Battlefield 2 does everything that 1942 and Vietnam titles did and more. The graphics were great and the gameplay was better. You've got to have more than just graphics to impress me and Battlefield 2's gameplay was awesome. My video card could not handle playing at high settings (5900FX) but at the medium settings it still looked great and played well. F.E.A.R. was a completely different feel than Battlefield. It is pure mayhem. My video card just plain sucked at high settings, and barely worked at medium. I had to play the game at 800x60032bit - which, by the way, I am embarrassed to admit. The game is a FP shooter but unlike Battlefield 2 which involves strategy and planning this game is a lightning fast fragfest. I can't count the number of times I died - I thought I was pretty good at FPS games, I have a pretty quick reflexes, but these guys I played against just totally wasted me. I can't imagine how good this game looks on a newer video card, but it's got to look good. Made me wish I had $500 lying around, but then again if I did would I really spend it on a video card? Probably not. Anyway I digress - my initial thoughts on Battlefield 2 are that I will be getting it when it comes out. Will I be buying F.E.A.R.? Possibly. That's all for now. PEACE!

Yesterday's Softball game

Well another softball night has come and gone. We won again but it was a close one, finishing up with an 18-12 win. It seemed like a lot of us were off our game - myself especially. I had 2 errors last night, I dropped a high ball that was hit out to me in right-center and let a ball go over my head. I also hit horribly. I try to just tap the ball and it ends up going all the way out to the outfielders. About halfway through the game I hit one between second and short and took off for first base. As I was nearing first base I suddenly felt a pop behind my right leg and then pain. I had pulled my hamstring AGAIN. This time it was much higher than right behind the knee. I ended up having to play out the rest of the game because of how we were doing substitutions. Today it hurts like mutha - going to be icing it all weekend to prepare for next week's game against the team we are tied with for first.

Mail-in Rebates: the new scam

MIR's (Mail-in Rebate) are a such a joke. It appears that companies outsource their MIR's to other company's who specialize in scrutinizing your rebate submission and finding any error they can to void your rebate. One such example: I bought a phone with a $100 MIR from T-Mobile last August. The kid in the store assured me that the phone was covered by the rebate. So I bought the phone and sent in the rebate the following day. About 2 months later I get a letter in the mail telling me that my rebate submission was declined and that my phone was not covered in the rebate. I called the number on the letter and spoke with a CSR who realized that my phone was indeed covered in the rebate and she resubmitted my form. I thought everything was ok, I was very wrong. I received the exact same letter the next month - I went through the process of calling and speaking with another CSR who came to the same conclusion as the first one and ended up resubmitting the rebate. The next month I received yet another letter exactly the same as the first and second. This happened each consecutive month until finally the rebate had expired. The last time (which turned out to be about 8 months later) I was told that the rebate was no longer existing and that I was out of luck. So I called T-Mobile up and ripped the CSR who spoke to me a new one. He told me that there was nothing he could do about the rebate because they were handled by an 'outside' company. I told him "well it looks like they did their job then because they successfully screwed me over on my rebate". He told me he didn't know what I was talking about, but I know he did. We finally came to the conclusion that T-Mobile would credit my account $100. That was 2 months ago and I'm still waiting to see that credit take place... In short, don't trust the MIR's.

Here's a basic picture of the case I got - I'll post a pic of my own hopefully tonight or tomorrow.

Just A Little Itch

So I got prescribed some amoxycillin for my root canal so that nothing gets infected. Last night around 10:00 I decided to take my first one. I go downstairs and settle into my chair to get a little WoW in. About an hour later I notice that I'm scratching my neck - no big deal just a little itch. About 30 minutes after that I'm scratching my hands and fingers. Now I start to think something is up. I stand up and I feel a little dizzy and there's a ring in my ears. So I rub my ears and notice they feel slightly warm. It was about 11:30 maybe 12 so I logout of WoW and head upstairs to tell Angela that my ears are warm and my fingers are super itchy. I get up there and she takes one look at me and says "OH MY GOSH!". I go look in the mirror and my neck is bright red and puffy from my ears to my chest. I go back out into the front room and sit down and then it set in like wildfire. I started scratching all over the place and just puffed up everywhere that I touched. I immediately assume that it's the amox. that's doing it. I was allergic to penicillin when I was a kid but I thought I was over that - guess not! I tried to lay down and go to sleep and not think about the itch but it was impossible. I scratched and scratched until it hurt and then I scratched some more. It didn't go away until about 2:30 in the morning, and that's when I finally got to sleep. Worst night I've had in a long time.