New Pages for a New Year

I’ve been tinkering with the site this week. First, I invite you to check out my new wine page and aviation page, which are both under the renamed Interests menu. They are works in progress, and I might expand them later, but I hope you find them interesting. Second, I finally figured out how to streamline some of the guts of the drop-down menus at the top of each page, making them much easier to update. I might monkey around with them more often now that it’s easy. I don’t do much “geek” stuff anymore, so I’m really excited about this. Jump up and down with me. PS – to be fair, I must admit that a friend of mine wrote most of the code that controls the menus, and I just adapted it for my site. Thanks, Chris!

Four Years

Yesterday Jenny and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary. It certainly doesn’t seem like four years have passed. Time flies when you’re married to such a wonderful woman. I am so happy to have her as my wife! If you haven’t seen it, I invite you to check out my wedding page to get the details. This year our celebration spans two days. Yesterday we got takeout from Whataburger. No, I’m not a total slob – we picked up some Whataburger after leaving the reception on the way to our hotel. Imagine two young adults in wedding clothes driving a fire engine red Trans Am through the drive-thru. Anyway, last night we ate burgers by candlelight and then watched our wedding video. Our officiant, Tim Wallace, did a fantastic job on our ceremony, and he plans to perform Katy’s wedding as well. Tonight we have a reservation at Perfect Touch Spa in Fort Worth, and after our treatments we plan to have dinner at Simply Fondue in Arlington.

A New Year

Wow, 2007 is here. Jenny and I had a nice time the other night reminiscing about all the joys and trials of 2006: new jobs, finishing school, new family members, lots of trips, and many good memories. I hope to put together a real Christmas newsletter for 2007 that compiles some of our new memories for our loved ones. Here’s to a wonderful new year!

The big news for this week is my sister-in-law Katy’s engagement. She’s been dating a great guy named Eric for about a year. On Saturday they went down to Austin for the day, and he asked her to marry him at Lake Travis. They are planning to marry this summer, probably in June. Congratulations, Katy and Eric!

Whew, What a Week!

This week I worked 6 day shifts, filling in for more senior people who took vacation. Working Christmas didn’t bother me that much except that I couldn’t see my dad’s side of the family Christmas Eve in Wichita Falls. It was a very busy workweek! One day Sacramento was fogged in, and two or three planes landing in SMF had mechanical problems. The next day San Jose was fogged in. Tuesday Reno was extremely windy, and one of my flights reported severe turbulence just before landing and diverted to Oakland. Thursday I tried to referee a battle between a Captain who wanted an aircraft inspected and the mechanics who didn’t think it was necessary based on the circumstances. Yesterday I had flights into Denver, a double-diversion at Albuquerque due to snow and fog, a charter to plan, and thunderstorms all over Texas. This is on top of our Christmas celebrations. Now I finally get a day off, and we’re having an 80th birthday party for my grandfather in Rowlett.

BREAKING NEWS! AN ANDYBOX.COM EXCLUSIVE!!! Thursday brought the birth of Paige Noel Cerney, the first daughter of my cousin Joe and his wife Erin. You won’t find this anywhere else, not even BabyCerney.com!

Live Long and Prosper

Today’s Cool Website Spotlight shines on Prosper.com, a site that links up people who want to borrow money with people who want to lend money. The borrowers either don’t want to use a traditional bank or have poor credit and can’t get a loan. They provide their financial details, get a credit score, and write up a request for a loan amount and suggested interest rate. Then the lenders look over the requests on the site, including their credit score and debt/income ratio. Then they bid on a piece of the loan, offering maybe $100 toward the loan at 10%, 25%, or whatever the appropriate rate is. Most lenders lend small amounts to many people to spread out the risk of default. If and when the loan is fully funded, the lenders start bidding down the interest rate until the “auction” closes. The borrower gets the money and starts paying it back to the lenders with interest over a 3-year term. If they default, Prosper sends a collection agency after them. It’s a fascinating concept, and if you can tolerate significant risk, it can provide excellent returns for you as a lender. Behold the power of the Internet!

The Bed

When I graduated from college, I had very little furniture, so I furnished a living room and bedroom. The bed I chose was a wall unit, queen-sized with huge piers on either side and a tall headboard with a mirror, all in oak veneer. This bed is BIG. The matching dresser and chest had plenty of space. I chose these pieces partly because I liked them and partly because I wanted to have enough space for my future wife’s things, in case I ever found a woman willing to marry me. Well, once I did find a wife, she thought the bed was too big and didn’t like it. She also didn’t like my nice brown comforter that had served me well as a bachelor. At first I was hurt and offended, but over time I came to understand a woman’s need to “fluff the nest”. We replaced the comforter early on, donating the old one to some needy folks, but we ended up saving the bed for this weekend. We spent a few hours at IKEA, one of the coolest furniture stores ANYWHERE. We bought a black metal bed with birch nightstands, another new comforter, funky lamps, and a beautiful painting for over the bed. The massive old bed now sits in the guest bedroom. We also got a new mattress set for the guest bedroom from Sleep Experts. They are very nice folks, helpful but not pushy. They rehab and donate your old mattresses to charity, so I like doing business with them. Now that everything is set up, Jenny is happy, and I must admit that I am, too.