I have been forever teased by my lovely wife Laura that my car smells like crayons.  She enjoys making fun of it and basking in the joy of hearing some other unsuspecting person say "why does your car smell like crayons?" when they get into my car.  It's not funny, but at least I finally found out it's not something I dropped under the seat that's decaying (some of you might remember the opened Pepsi can my friend Lyle left under my seat for 1/2 a year that I only found because one day I saw a trail of ants going toward it).  the important part is that I am not alone:

Article on My VW Lemon.  Or go to their main site to see other complaints about VW Jettas.

Thanks goodness this wasn't our house - but I saw it on the way out of the neighborhood this morning...  can't believe it's the neighbor's tree.  Rumor has it the tree was cut by "professionals".  You can see the straight across cut they made on the trunk of the tree.  Brilliant.

I like this picture...  it's an accident that it looks this way.  The camera on my cell phone is quite bad and blurred the edges (since they were moving the fastest) but it looks like I'm flying down the road.  I really like roads with tree cover like this...

Remember the huge spider from the other day?  In its place (same gas station, same pump) is a praying mantis.  Wonder if it got the spider...

A good time was had by all this weekend as we traveled up to Norfolk, VA to visit our friend Chris.  How incredible is it to have your name on the side of an F-18 Hornet:

It's absolutely amazing to me that he gets to fly this plane:

I'm sure it looks even more menacing when it is fully loaded up with bombs, missiles, etc., but I'm glad they didn't let us near anything live.  Of course, even without weapons, this plane has managed to cause damage (fortunately not while Chris was in it):

Imagine how much crap his friends would give him if he had been the one to kill Bambi on the runway...  Just in case something like this happened again, Laura was prepared by wearing the proper headgear (she knows Chris too well):

We were actually visiting because Chris will be away from home for the next several months on his home away from home:

We enjoyed this weekend, doing some water skiing in the calmer areas of the Chesapeke Bay (Elizabeth River actually, I think).  Chris's parents and brother also visited us and brought the smallest dog on earth with them:

I believe it weighed in at 1 pound, 2 ounces.  I bet at least 1 pound of it was fur.  If it gives you any sort of reference, I believe the tiles are 12 inches across. 

Good food was had by all:

But no matter how much fun we were having, Chris always made sure to talk with his wife when she got a free moment on the computer.  She is on a ship right now and he doesn't get to talk with her very frequently.  Here he is, still typing with only two fingers:

Good luck, Chris.  Stay safe and come back home soon.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this...  it appears as if they have the equipment installed for a traffic light at Morgan Rd and Aviation.  Woo hoo!  This was a terrible intersection.  Once this and the light at I459 get turned on, I will no longer have blind left turns at a stop sign onto major streets.  Yay.

Why is it the oddest looking creatures are always the ones trying to get into your house?  This moth was beating itself to death to try to get in our living room last night.  Its wingspan is approx 6 inches.

He's only with us through tonight...  but it's been funny having him around.  Here is the slowest he's been all weekend:

Of course this picture was taken seconds before he knocked the bottle into the bathtub, but I'm pretty sure he'd like it if his little non-opposable thumbs could grip that cap to open it.

I just thought this was a funny picture.

I've had problems over the past few years of my belt loops on Levi's jeans breaking while the rest of the jean is still near perfect.  My mother had been fixing them for me for a while, but thanks to Rob prompting me to see if they have a warranty, I sent a pair to Levi's to see what they'd do.  Sure enough a week or so later, we got a monsterously large box with a pair of jeans in it.  A brand new, pristine fresh pair with all the labels still on them.  Way to go Levi's for having incredible customer service.

So apparently Sandy Springs (part of Atlanta Metro) has big "painted turtles" at quite a few businesses.  Cross that with a turtle collector, and you have someone that wants to steal your yard ornament.  Here is the turtle lover with the life-sized turtle:

Laura and I saw Chris in Atlanta on Satuday.  I thought this was a really good picture of the two of them:

Here's something sweet...  Our friends Chris and DonAnn are both in the Navy.  DonAnn is somewhere far, far away from her husband Chris.  Each night we were with Chris this weekend, he had to be near a computer at 11pm to catch DonAnn online and email her back and forth.  1st of all, this is really cool since I didn't know Navy ships had near real time email.  2nd - look how much concentration Chris puts into typing with just two fingers:

Just kidding Chris!  You go pretty fast for only using two fingers on each hand :)

Our girl cat, Bella, has taken to sleeping on top of the entertainment center in our bedroom.  Keep in mind the shortest part of the ceiling pictured is 8 feet off the ground and the boards she is standing on are approximately 1 inch wide.  Apparently this is the way she gets up and she jumps down on the bed.  She also apparently does this when the fan is running only a few inches away from her.  A very strange one, that Bella.  By the way, excellent job camerawoman (Laura).

Our Christmas Cactus (courtesy of my sister Tara) seems to like the sunlight it gets in our living room.  See the sprout on the middle stalk?  Go cactus!

Here's a current pic of my "children":

This is one of the largest spiders I have ever seen outside of a zoo:

It's abdomen was almost the size of a dime.  And it apparently liked Plus better than Regular or Premium.

Having not worked on 280 for two months now, I consider myself very lucky.  The other morning I had to go to the doctor's office and pretty much got scenes like this one the entire way there.  Stoplight to stoplight of semi trucks: