./janella.com

I’m posting again directly to Janella.com using the famous Wordpress. Yes, I have left my irregular blogging on my Vox account. Actually, I will continue to do irregular blogging on Vox, but my regular musings will occur here.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Vox a lot. I like it better than MySpace, Friendster, Multiply, Facebook, and LiveJournal. Why?

• Nice templates
• Friendly community
• Easy to use blog posting screen.
• Great privacy controls. You can let everyone, friends, family or neighbors view what you post.
• The ability to upload photos, videos, and sound files.
• The ability to access your accounts like Flickr, Photobucket and such to post.
• Meeting new people.

What ended up NOT working for me was:

• Lack of personal customization. Recently added was an ability to add a banner images which is cool, though. I would like to have had the ability to add links to my other 'Me Sites'.
• Inability to for non-registered users to comment on your blog entries.

While the pros seem to outweigh the cons, the cons felt pretty big as time passed. If I never had a web hosting account or used Wordpress or MovableType, I guess I wouldn’t know what running my own blog/site would feel like. But that last pro, Meeting new people. is a big reason why I keep my Flickr account and will keep my Vox account.

There are so many interesting people out there, posting funny personal musings, intriguing thoughts. and stunning photographs that it’s hard to pry yourself away from a community you’ve joined. So I will be a visitor there from time to time. But for now, and the foreseeable future, I’m right here and will write here.

I’m home.

Tru dat!

This last weekend farrah and I flew down to San Diego to help Heidi and Yen move to their new apartment.  Unfortunately, I was just getting over a cold so I was a bit grumpy at times.

The flight going to San Diego had a slight delay.  The flight there was uneventful, though on landing the air pressure really got to my ears.  It was as if someone was pinching my ear drums.  I could not hear for sometime afterwards.  I guess I wasn’t over my cold after all.

James flew in from Oakland as well, so we all met at the airport.  We grabbed a bit to eat that night at a place called Yard House.  I guess their main claim to serving the world’s largest selection of draft beer.  I tried something called a Delirum Tremens - a bitter Belgium beer.  I didn’t really enjoy it much and downed it quickly ordering a Black & Tan to fill the void.  farrah had the SLO Blueberry Ale and the Lost Coast Apricot Wheat beer.   Even Yen had a SLO Blueberry Ale.

On Saturday, we got up a bit late, but was able to move everything in the afternoon.  The slow part was the loading of the U-Haul that Yen had rented.  Unload went by really quickly.  It probably when by quick because we were all thinking of dinner at Rei do Gado.   Farrah ate there with Yen and Heidi the last time we were in San Diego, and I really wanted to go there.  Even though we had an 8 o’clock reservation we still had to wait.  But I think the wait was worth it.  Honestly, I wish I ate more meat!

On Sunday we took a brief trip across the border into Tijuana, Mexico.  It was my first time there.  We ate at a little taco stand Heidi had eaten at before.  There was also several other places where various snacks were consumed.  We didn’t really buy anything there as the weather was turning cloudy, so we headed back across the border to shop at the Las Americas.  I think we stayed a bit to long there because we needed to rush back for James to catch his flight.  Thanks to Heidi’s mad driving James made his flight with about 15 minutes to spare.

Our plane back home was late in departing and I was feeling run down.   When I got home that night I knew I was sick once again.  I think I caught Heidi’s cold!  Now I’ve been sick most of February.  Hopefully, I will get better in March.

This past three-day weekend could have been more than what it was. Unfortunately, I caught the cold that has been hounding farrah for the past week. Thursday night found me with a scratchy throat. By Friday afternoon I was feeling rundown.

Friday night I resolved to spend most of Saturday in bed, hoping to salvage Sunday and Monday for some fun. But Farrah reminded me that the post office was open for passport renewal on this special Saturday, so morning rest had to wait. We got up early, but not early enough to beat the approximately 100 people in front of us in line. It took us ninety minutes to process through the line, then less then 10 minutes to actually process our paperwork. After eating brunch - since it was about 10:30 am, we headed home and me into bed.

Sunday morning I was still dopey, and Monday didn’t seem much better. But yet, I crawled slowly out of bed each day just to get out and about around the house. The only thing we really accomplished together this weekend, besides the passport renewal, was several levels of Zelda on the Wii.

Perhaps the weekend wasn’t lost after all.

I know I haven’t been blogging much lately.  There are several reasons for this, but the task taking up most of my free time has been trying to defeat General RAAM.  He’s the ugly MOFO you see below:

If I haven’t mentioned already, farrah’s Christmas present to me was an XBOX 360.  From previous posts you probably know I gave her a Wii for her birthday.  So now we have games system to the hilt - only lacking a Playstation 3 - which I see plunking down any change for anytime soon.

farrah knows I was debating the merits of an XBOX 360 versus a Playstation 3.  But when I started gushing about how “Gears of War” looked pretty cool on the XBOX 360, she pulled the trigger on it as my present. (Wow, what a wife!)

GOW has been a pretty fun game. A bloody, violent and profanity laced adventure which is all you can ask for in a shoot ‘em up type game.  But killing General RAAM, the last boss in the game, doesn’t take the normal blunt force trauma method.  It required numerous precise shots to his noggin while his shield of flying friends are not surrounding him.  Oh, he’s also armed with a gatlin gun that can cut you in half, so it even makes it more difficult.

It took me the good part of a week to finally kill him.  And now that game part is over and I have more free time to blog…and to play “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” on the Wii.

After having dinner at home, farrah and I were watching TV a commercial for Carl’s Jr. milkshakes came on. Well, not twenty minutes later did I find myself in my truck heading over to get a couple of them for dessert … even though it’s freakin' 30 degrees outside.

Damn advertising.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq25qD44hC0&w=640&h=480]