Birthday Weekend

I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday weekend.  It got started on Thursday with dinner with my Dad and Step-mom.  Then, Friday night Bambi and I went to Hula Mama’s in Humble for a Hawaiian Luau - it was great.  A while back, I had seen Hula Mama’s pop up on Groupon and thought, why not?!  There was good food, BYOB, and great entertainment.  I would have never expected that in Humble and was pleasantly shocked.

 



Fire Show

 


Buffet

Saturday morning I met up with Kelley Simmons to do the Coldspring 46 mile road ride.  We also ran into Melissa Cox and Raymund Codina, it’s always nice to see familiar faces.  Kelley put the hurt on me and for some odd reason I had issues with my calf muscle.  Both calves cramped on me during the first 10 miles of the ride.  I ran the day before and was quite shocked that I had those issues.  Kelley had a classic quote, he said "I should give up the whole endurance thing if I’m cramping during the first 5 miles on the road.”  Thanks Kelley!  LOL.  After the ride we headed to the BBQ joint across the street from Double Lake, this was my first time to stop in and the food was good, I would go back. 



Saturday night Bambi and I made our way out to the Woodlands.  We needed to pick up our Bikeland jackets and then we were going to head to Market Street for some shopping.  The shopping really isn’t good at Market Street for our taste, but there are plenty of places to eat and grab a cocktail.  We decided on 1252 Tapas Bar.  We didn’t know what a Tapas Bar was, but we thought what the heck.....as we always like to try new things.  A Tapas Bar ends up being food orders of small portion sizes that act as samples.  We ended up getting 5 different tapas and we both liked all of them, ranging from cheese, meats, potatoes, olives, mushrooms, and scallops with bacon.  

 

We topped off the birthday weekend with Bambi and I meeting my mom for lunch at Texas Roadhouse, today Jan. 30^th is her birthday.  I was her birthday present 29 years ago -- how time flies.  My brother joined us along with my Step-dad, Gary.  We had a good lunch and then headed back to our place to open gifts.  The 1st gift she wanted me to open was a baby starter kit consisting of a pacifiers, diapers & wipies, baby shoes, baby toys, brush, etc.  The surprise gift was a mannequin with a Superman outfit.  <Inside story here>...  When we bought our new house, the old couple we bought the house from collected antiques.  One of the antiques that they had was a huge old style telephone booth sitting in the back yard along the fence.  They had no interest in moving it so we decided to keep it and make it a talking piece.  The older couple had a running joke that they'd leave it, only if I got a Superman outfit to play the part.  It looks really good with Superman in there now and I’m sure our neighbors think we are crazy.      

     

Superman

29th Bday

Okay, so I’m turning 29 tomorrow and as I was driving into work today I was thinking when was the last time I looked forward to a birthday?  I guess for me it was my 21^st bday.  I was partying a lot in College Station before I turned 21 and most of it at bars.  I hated asking people to buy me drinks but I had some friends at the time that didn’t seem to mind.  I finally got a MIP and an open container two weeks before my 21^st birthday.  Oh well - live, learn, pay the fine, and move on.  When I turned 21, those problems went away.   

My Dad (Noal Truitt) and Step Mom (Molly Truitt) came over last night from Friendswood to check out the progress being made to the house and take us out to dinner for my birthday.  We had a great visit and I’m hoping to get closer with my dad with a baby on the way.  My mom raised my brother and I so we are definitely closer to her, but we have always had a decent relationship with our dad.  I talk my dad regularly, I just don’t see him that often considering he only lives 50 miles away.  We both are at fault.  We both need to go out of the way for each other.

My employer, Denali Oil and Gas got me a cake and balloons today for my birthday.  We have had a new office manager since August named Cindy who is really nice and decided to bring in a cake for my bday.  I pulled her aside when she first started contracting for Denali and gave her some advice if she really wanted the job.  I think she really appreciated I did that and she was hired on within 6 weeks.  My advice mainly had to do with staying out of drama between some of the women in the office.  Women can be mean in the work environment and I’ve seen it firsthand. 

Doing the Coldspring Road Ride tomorrow for training purposes to get the day started off right, it will be nice to ride some hills.  Here is the link if you are interested. 

http://www.kingwoodfillies.org/2011_bike_ride.php

Vehicles

With Bambi being pregnant I started to evaluate if we are properly prepared for a baby.  The guys at work rode with me a few weeks back in the Honda Element and the first thing they say is the Element will not work well because of the suicide doors.  That got the ball rolling, so I spent the next few days researching small to mid size SUVs.  One other factor playing into the decision as well was if Bambi gets busier with Real Estate, it will be important for her to have an easy access vehicle for 4 people.  So on one of my half Fridays we went to every dealership in Humble looking at their SUVs.  We evaluated just about every maker out there.  The ones we liked the most were the Ford Flex, GMC Acadia, Honda Pilot, and Chevrolet Traverse.  We ended up siding with the mid size SUVs, we knew we would grow out of the small SUV too quickly. 

Chevy Traverse

The Traverse and the Acadia are practically the same vehicle except the Acadia comes with more standard features and is pricier.  Bambi didn’t care much for the look of the Ford Flex, she said it looked like a Hearst.  So we decided to go with the Traverse because we knew of Chevrolet’s 0% financing and we had just got rid of our Monte Carlo but they said we still could get another $1,000 off.  We are very happy with our purchase, we weren’t upside down on the Element and ended up getting about $1,500 more than we owed on it.  Marcus Lofton was the sales rep at Robbins Chevrolet and would recommend him to anyone if looking for a Chevrolet. 

So I’m kind of car envy right now but my truck has been paid off for over a year now and its nice not having a car payment.  But then I received this in the mail today.

So I looked up my truck on Kelly Blue Book today and it’s worth $6,000, I’ve got this flyer telling me they will give $10,600.  What to do, I will update later.         

Politics

The State of Union Address is tonight I can’t say I care enough to watch it.  There is no doubt our country is in desperate times but can’t stand too listen to that blow hard for an hour with cheerleaders in the audience.  My Mom raised me and my brother and we lived in a 2 bedroom apartment all the way until I was 13 years old.  I wouldn’t consider ourselves poor growing up, but we didn’t have as much as others at the same time.  We never depended on government as far as I know.  When politics came up I had always considered myself a democrat.  All of that changed on September 11, 2001.  When the twin towers fell I started to follow the news and educate myself on the issues and the parties.  Around the same I started to listen to talk radio because half of my job in college was spent driving around in a truck.  I never cared much for Rush Limbaugh but I enjoyed listening to Neal Boortz and Bill O’Reilly.  At one point I tried to apply to work on Bill O’Reilly’s staff, crazy college kid I guess.

I do think Obama is bringing our nation down and hopefully in two years the experiment will be over and we can undo some of the damage done.  The Government needs to quit spending money on wasteful projects and scale back government.  We need to let capitalism pick the winners and losers in this country not the government.  The current kids and my generation right now will be faced with an incredible debt that they will be paying on for the rest of their lives.  There are serious issues that need to be addressed and at least there is balance now with the Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives. 

Oil & Gas business

My occupation is an Engineer/Geologist at a small company located in Houston called Denali Oil & Gas.  When I say small I mean small, 18 person company and we drill and operate wells in South Texas.  Last year 2010 was a crazy year for our company.  We set up to sell our assets 3 different times with 1 failed sell and the other 2 we stopped in the process.  Then towards the end of the year we tried buying $1.5 billion dollar package that would have changed our company completely.  All of the projects we worked on last year never developed into anything and this leads to what happened today at the office.  You know when tensions are tight because someone dropped an "F$CK You" bomb at the office today.  Luckily it wasn’t me saying it to someone or someone saying it to me.

I have never worked at a big company and I have reservations working for one.  Bambi worked for Unocal/Chevron for 9 years and found out this past year on how loyal they are to their employees.  Talk about a screw job, she pours her heart out and attends college for 3 years in which Chevron pays 75% of and 10 months later they let her go.  Talk about rewarding an employee for hard work and dedication.  She had grown tired at her current role and wasn’t happy with the new manager but she was totally shocked.  I didn’t think managers could get rid of employees at a company like Chevron because they didn’t like someone but that is exactly what happened in this situation.  She asked for more training and requested to opt for another job opening within Chevron leading up to her termination.  Her manager said no to both requests, it has left a bad taste in her mouth and I don’t blame her.   I hope this never happens to someone else.         

Home Projects

Saturday and Sunday have been dedicated for Bambi and me to be working on the house.  We had bought a natural sequoia stain a while back to freshen up our outdoor cabana so Saturday shaped to a beautiful day outside and we got after it.  We painted the outdoor cabana and a 40 ft section of fence as well.  It took us all day but we got it done, here are the before and after pictures. 

Old Deck

New Deck

This is a great skit about decks.

Sunday was another day of house chores as I installed a new outdoor light, tore out some bushes, raked the mulch, and painted more of the living room.  I have been working on the living room for 3 weeks now but it’s a very big task.  The room is 17’ X 24’ and has cross beams and crown molding throughout.  I’m painting the ceiling as well and it has a thicker texture making it tough to paint.  I’m getting close to done, maybe sometime this next week. 

The day wrapped up watching the two teams I expected to win, Green Bay and the Steelers.  All and all a great weekend.   

Friends and Family

Well Friday night I had a Transportation Committee (Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo) Kick-off Party at Reliant so Bambi and I headed there to start the night.  Live band, dinner, and free booze so why not go.  The Transportation Committee has over a thousand members and I really don’t know anybody on the team personally nor do I care.  People are on the committee for different reasons: the badge, meet people, other friends, give back, etc.  I think my main reason is to give back and my dad was on a committee while I was growing up and I enjoyed going to the Rodeo as a kid.  This will be my 5^th year to volunteer, only 15 more years and I will be set up as a Lifetime Committeeman. 

Transportation Mardi Gras Theme

From there we headed to Blue Moose Lodge, a new bar on Washington.  We went to Blue Moose because one of my best friends, Jason Pritchard, will be playing there on February 16^th.Come check him out if you can. 

Jason Maloney & one of his friends joined up with us at Blue Moose, lucky for him it's walking distance.  It’s always good to catch up with Jason and he is one of the nicest guys I know.  I have a designated driver now but I normally just have a few beers anyway these days.  From there we headed to Porter to meet up with my brother Casey, Tim Z, Daryl S, Jason W, Garret, Richie R, and Big Daryl.  Porter is only a few miles from our new home so its now more convenient to go there.  They were playing a drinking game when we showed up and having a great time.  We saw their dead soldiers on display (see below), quite impressive.  I like getting around people that have a good time and there is no doubt that group has a lot of fun.  We joined them for an hour before we made the final trek home.       



People dancing on table at 9:30 PM!





112 cans I counted.

History Lesson

So yesterday I’m in my office with one of my bosses as we are trying to solve the world’s problems and he looks at me & calls me a “Beatnik”.  I look at him and ask him what the hell is a “Beatnik”.  From Wiki, Beatnik referred to a media stereotype of the Beat Generation during the 1950s and 1960s that were hipsters of their time.  They were free spirit people who hitchhiked and bummed across America.  Here is a photo of a Beatnik and look at the comparison.  I guess I do look like a Beatnik!

We received a present from our dogs yesterday, a dead bird.  Here is the picture, now if they can kill a deer they will be a contributing member to the household.

Water Shakedown

So we have been getting numerous calls from this number that popped up on our caller ID as "QWSI" since we have moved into our house.  I finally answered the phone and it was a water company that wanted to test our water since we are new homeowners and they will give us a $20 gift card to Home Depot for letting them come into our home.  I thought it would be good idea to test our water but I was still leery of this being a scam so I got all of the information from the caller and told her if anything happens I would be looking for her specifically.  I’m not sure she liked my comment but I didn’t care.

So a tester from Quality Water (something or other) shows up our house on Monday evening at 6:30 PM, it happened to be a woman so it was less intrusive.  She had briefcase full of beakers and chemicals and I’m thinking this is legit, no hanky business going on here.  She tests the water coming from our sink and our drinking water from our refrigerator.  Our chlorine levels were low and it surprised her but our water had a lot of particles and water was very hard, level 10 and it’s suppose to be 1.  She then goes through this exercise of washing our hands.  With one hand we used water from her contraption attached to our sink and the other we used the regular water coming out of our faucet.  There was a huge difference, I was surprisingly shocked at the difference.  At this point I’m ready to buy whatever she is selling because I was amazed with the differences of her water vs ours but of course it also depends on the price.  There were a couple of other tests as well comparing hers vs ours.

So we go to our newly finished dining room to sit down to go over her high glossy presentation book and discuss the price.  Good thing I was sitting down because I would have probably collapsed when I saw her price for this unit, $6,307 for a 3 piece water treatment system.  I was amazed and almost flabbergasted, but how in the hell I’m suppose to know how much this stuff costs.  All I’m thinking about is bathing my future baby in my nasty water and drinking nasty water as well.  I told her we appreciate her time and there is no way we are buying her unit today based on that price.  She then tries to go over how much money we will save by not having to buy soaps, detergents, cleaners, etc.  You supposedly got a 5 year supply of cleaning detergents when you bought the unit. 

One thing I will say, I hate buying anything having not done any research.  We went to Destin Florida one on timeshare deal  a few years ago and they were trying to sell us a timeshare for $12,000, I told them it sounds well and dandy but we weren’t buying it.  First off we didn’t have that kind of money, and second I had no clue on what a timeshare costs.  When I got home I found we could buy that same timeshare for somewhere around $750 online, pretty big difference.       

So this brings me back to the Quality Water, we sent them on their way and thanked them for their time and the gift card.  The following morning I did some research and I discovered I could buy something similar to their unit ranging from $500 to $1,250.  Lesson learned from this ordeal, if there is cold calling and a high glossy presentation, it’s overpriced.  This is now two instances between the timeshare and Quality Water, I hope you never fall for the trap as well. 

Baby!

See if you can spot the baby.

Okay, here is the first official photo of the baby.  This is the sonogram picture taken after 6 weeks, it's crazy how good the technology is these days.  The next visit is February 4th give or take, this will be around week 10 or 11 of the pregnancy.  And yes we will be finding out if it is a boy or girl, around week 20.  Bambi has been wanting to find out since day one, it's going to be a long pregnancy with all of the anticipation of our first child.  

So we have this little problem with our new adopted dog Shiloh, see pic from first post.  She is the sweetest dog in the world but she has a problem with peeing in our living room.  We never catch her in the act, but I know it's her.  Stormy was potty trained at 4 months (2 years old now), I know she is not the issue.  We punish her and put her nose in it, then place her outside but it hasn't had an effect yet.  She knows she has done wrong and will usually hide from us for 15 mins then she will come back with her head hanging low telling us she is sorry.  I feel bad for her, she wants to be loved because she was an abused dog but we have to discipline her as well.  We will get it figured out eventually.  

A co-worker of mine told me a great saying the other day that I had never heard of.  There are 3 types of people in this world.

1)      Those who watch things happen

2)      Those who make things happen

3)      Those who wandered what happened

I hope I never end up #3, life is way too short.

1st Post

After reading numerous blogs I figured it was time for me to take the plunge myself.  I mostly read blogs from other cyclists but this will be mostly about my life with racing and cycling being a small part of it. 



Stormy

What inspired me to write my blog, well I briefly recap the last six months of my life.  After our townhome was on the market for 7 months, we finally got a contract.  After the option period we started looking for a home in Kingwood and the neighborhood we chose was Forest Cove, less restrictions and bigger lots.  The first house was immaculate in the living areas but nothing was finished, including 3 spare rooms.  We offered full price but a cash investor entered into the deal and beat us out, cash is King.  The next home we looked at we liked and with some negotiation they accepted our offer.  We closed on our townhome a day before we closed on our house, talk about cutting it close.  Wells Fargo earned a very bad reputation in my book, took them over 60 days to close the deal for the buyer of our townhome.

The couple we bought the home in Kingwood needed a place to stay due to family issues and now needing to find a new home.  We decided to lease back the home to them for a couple of months while Bambi, Stormy, and I shacked up with my parents in New Caney.  This was great at first but after 3 weeks we started getting on each other's nerves and Bambi ended up losing her job at Chevron shortly thereafter.  In the middle of this I worked on a work project for 32 days straight, we didn't get the project by the way.  I ended up missing the USARA Nationals (USARA) race because of my work project as well, not next year.  We moved into the new house on Nov. 19 and have been remodeling ever since.  So far we have replaced every fan, pull knobs, door handles, tore down the fireplace, put in two arches, new garage unit, new exterior doors, and painted 3 rooms so far.  I will post pics as progress is being made.  We also adopted a new dog on Nov. 19 and named her Shiloh.  Bambi has been working on real estate in the meantime and we have created our own company http://www.truittrealty.com/.

The week of Christmas we found out that Bambi was pregnant!!!  We were both ecstatic and couldn't wait to tell the future grandparents during the gift exchange.  We bought them symbolic gifts and made sure they opened them last, it was a tear jerker both times.  I was very happy for my parents, this will be their first true blood grandchild.  I have a picture from the first Doctor's visit and will post tomorrow. 

Bambi and I have been the organizers for Houston Fit AR for the last year 2010 and are handing over the reins to Helena and Gabe, the club is in good hands.  It was a learning and rewarding experience for us as organizers and it was great to give back to club that gave so much to us.  I did the Excruciation Exam (80 mile mountain bike race) on January 8th and was glad to finish due to the fact I had a mechanical and thought I was done for the day.  So this brings you up to date and I will try to post something enlightening each day.  Please let me know what you think as well.   



Shiloh