davejenbarnes

A gigantic THANK YOU goes out to my brother, Jerry, who helped me edit the gallery’s files and change the php to de-clutter the appearance of all my albums! Thank you for all your patience while I asked silly questions and had the short term memory of Dori, the forgetful fish in Finding Nemo. Thank you for teaching me a little bit about deciphering php. Your help gave me the courage to edit WordPress’s php files and slim down the appearance of the comments area of each and every post. I was also able to decipher enough to find the instructions for the text-box and make it bigger. I couldn’da done it without you, Jer!

We had a great time, despite the heat! And I’m not just talking about the sauce. Man, the weather was wicked hot. David has quite a sunburn and we both sweated gallons.

I would judge it as being a success soley on the crowd and Dave’s big smile. I, personally, did not try any sauces. We came home with two new bottles, though, which bring’s Dave’s grand total of hot sauces up to 35. Someday maybe David’ll tell you all about the Austin Hot Sauce Festival from his point of view.

I’ve given most of the site a new outfit just in time for the two hot sauce festivals we will be going to in the next three weeks! While I have not tested it on anything other than Safari, IE for mac, and Firefox, it seeeeeeems to be working alright. If you don’t see it all pretty-like, drop me a comment. Oh, and don’t worry if your comments don’t get posted right away. I found the setting in WordPress which emails me the comment directly before it gets posted on the site. Nifty thing, that WordPress.

For those of you who have never set foot in Dave’s kitchen, this is pretty much it. I’ve wanted to paint the walls that awesome yellow you see to the right and the left, but living in an apartment has its limitations. We do have a shelf up high, above our heads, lined with bottle after bottle of the sauces caliente. There are more chili peppers than hot sauces in the kitchen but someday that will not be the case.

While I’m still thinking of it, here are some things not to comment about: GALLERY is still referencing the sky-blue design. I know this. I’m working on it. GUESTBOOK is still referencing the waaay old brown design. I know this as well. I’m not working on it as actively, though, because I forgot where to edit to get it updated. Think of those two areas as “a blast to the past.” I know about them. Maybe they’ll be hotsaucified, maybe they won’t. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Okay, I’m done hogging the computer. I think I’ll go watch Dave play some GameCube. Laters

Last night, at the new Sonic at Parmer/1431, David and I tried to close the sunroof on the red car. It didn’t work until we were driving again, so we’re pretty sure that the motor or the power to the motor is on the fritz. I’ll be calling various Saturn dealerships trying to get a guesstimate for the labor/parts of the sunroof so we can budget for its repair. Three years of nothing but opening and closing have probably worn out that poor motor. Either that or Saturns really ARE just cheap cars! :o (it has been making a loud click/thump noise when you open or close it… for four or five months now)

I have had it up to there with iPhoto. I’m trying to print pictures for Nicole’s shower book (it took me a long time to get the photo paper — which I am ruining now that I have it) … I am trying to make a collage of pictures digitally and print them as one print. iPhoto won’t let you create a collage file, so I’ve resorted to GraphicConverter, which I have already mentioned makes photos blurry. I’ve tried printing from GC with no luck. I’ve tried importing the files into Word and printing on the highest setting from Word. I’ve tried importing the collage file into iPhoto and printing, but iPhoto won’t let me select 5 inches by 6 inches as a size, nor will it let me print the file actual size (5 inches by 6 inches). Before David got home, Gimp wouldn’t run (due to the iMac hard drive crash) and now it won’t print either, even though the collages I make with Gimp are FAR MORE detailed and less blurry than with GC. I KNOW it’s NOT the files. I took the pictures with a digital REBEL and they’re HUGE. For having a great printer, computer, and decent software (GIMP), I am not impressed with what I’m getting.

Any suggestions I could do for free? I can’t afford to run out and buy Photoshop CS or anything. I guess I could install Photoshop Elements. That will be my next mission. I haven’t given up yet. (I have, however, given up on iPhoto)

We are going this year no matter what! I just googled Austin Hot Sauce and … we didn’t miss it! It looks like we live in the right city for my chili-headed husband! Dave, I’ll make sure your capsaisin shirt is clean.

I spent the weekend with my mom in Minnesota, don’t'cha know, and we visited the Mall of America. Oh yah, it was great fun. …. *cough* …. okay, I don’t think I can type in a Minnesotan accent any longer, but hearing the natives talking was great fun! The secret is in their vowels. I think is has something to with the back of their tongues being higher in their mouths when they pronounce the vowels which gives them a more nasal sound. At least, that’s what I have to do to sound like a native Minnesotan. (I wonder if it’s easier for them to play clarinet since your tongue has to be high inside your mouth to get a decent tone)

The flight up was pretty uneventful and smooth. We flew out of GRK, the new airport in Killeen which utilizes the 2-mile runway of the old West Fort Hood Army Airport. Hey - I’ve landed on the same runway as Air Force One! I didn’t realize how close that part of Killeen and that part of Fort Hood were untill I saw it from the air. At the airport in Minnesota, we waited for the Hotel Shuttle. Man, the guy driving had a lead foot. His acceleration alarmed us! I have never used a shuttle service, but it was nice and prevented us from needing to rent a car or use a taxi. We used the shuttle service to and from the Mall of America, which I will describe for you:

Imagine a big square donut. Not just big. HUGE. At each corner of the square donut, a three or four story department store. All the shops line the insides of the donut and there are three donut levels stacked on top of each other. Now in the middle of this concrete stack of donuts, sits Camp Snoopy, a theme park complete with roller coasters, big snoopy mascots walking around, and funnel cake booths. Camp Snoopy was open to the public and used a bracelet system for the rides (which we did not do) so we were able to walk around down there and get some cool pictures and movies.

I have to say, whoever designed the Mall of America made it very simple to understand with easy-to-access restrooms. I really liked the North-South-East-West design (all the roads from the sky appeared to be NSEW in layout as well) and the open-ness in the middle of each floor (like halfway down the west side was a big opening which you could see all the way down to the first floor from whatever floor you’re on so they had concerts and a “Beauty” appearance (from Beauty and the Beast) for the little girls to get pictures with..) The easiest comparison I can make for you Dallas people is that it’s like a Grapevine Mills mall, but on steroids. The only confusing part is that there are two of some of the stores which makes it easy to get disoriented.

The weekend was the perfect amount of time for us to spend there. On Sunday, we even visited the GIGANTIC IKEA store next door. Man, that place was amazing. I have received their catalogue before, but the store, to see the actual furniture in work and to be able to sit on it… that was something.

Pictures from the trip are up for you to enjoy. I had a good time.

Thanks, Dave’s Dad, for the update. I’ve been out of town and unable to keep this up-to-the-minute reporting going. I have just updated Kambry’s gallery with the pictures that Kambry’s other Grandpa (Papa) has emailed me.