Flammable, With Legs

I added a few photos. They are of a new plant and a new table.

The table is a poker table that I helped my friend Derek build. We play a lot of poker round these parts and we thought we needed a decent playing surface. It took Derek a few hours to do most of the cutting and sanding and Derek, me and Trev the better part of a Saturday to put all of the materials on. The table has padded rails, a padded velveteen playing surface, and some sweet lights around the inner edge.

The plant is an Aloe Vera plant. I was working a job and we were cutting around the edge of some beds in a guys yard. We had to (sadly) cut out some good healthy plants. I salvaved a scrap of an aloe plant with roots intact. I grabbed a spare put, some very fertile Florida topsoil, some miracle grow plant food and some time release fertilizer. I brought it home and put in in a window. Seeing no immediate results I of course tried to help nature out by putting the tiny plant outside in some strong Florida sun for a couple of consecutive afternoons. This caused it to get just a little brown so I again freaked out and watered it like crazy.

After all this I showed the plant to my brilliant girlfriend. She told me that the plant didn't need that much attention and that I was probably killing it. So I checked some places online and she was right. They don't need to be watered, and lots of sunlight can be bad for them. You can see between the 2nd and 3rd picture that it gets much greener. That's because I stopped watering it put it in a shady place in our house.

The other new pictures are of my freakishly long hair.

This just in. Anakin Skywalker was actually the dude who became Darth Vader. Holy Crap! Who saw that coming? No one? I didn't think so.

I am not and have never claimed to be a Star Wars efficianado, but I think that anyone who knew JACK SQUAT about the original trilogy, saw any part of the episodes one and two, and/or has had their eyes open during the last two months knew that what I sarcastically wrote above would be played out in cinema. It would be hard for someone not to know this stuff.

Example: I got a Slurpee from the local 7-11 that basically spelled out the plot of E3. Picture of Anakin, dark circles under eyes, looking really PO'ed. The there are more blatant examples, like this poster released after E1.

So here's my gripe. If you mention this movie in any sort of conversation or publication, web or print, don't say "I don't want to ruin anything." Everyone who wanted to see it did just that last night around 12:15. And anyone who might be angry at the "spoiler" probably is too far gone to be a Star Wars fan. We clear?

I had plans of going to a friend's wedding that COMPLETELY fell through. Now when I say completely fell through, I mean that the person planning the trip (my roomate) called me at 1am the the night before we're to leave and tells me that he can't go. Wow. Thanks for the heads up.

So weekend plans being shot, I decided to make the most of it. Angie had already planned a girls' night with her friends for Friday so she went ahead with her plans (since her friends aren't deadbeats). So having a rare wide-open Friday, I worked some planning magic and found something to do.

I called up a good buddy of mine and headed to his apartment. I arrived to find him in the middle of a project. He was building a poker table in his garage. Being the fan of poker that I am, and considering that the guy was moving in with us in just a few weeks, I decided to lend a hand.

It seemed like the last time i worked with wood was Mr. Hogan's 8th grade wood-shop. It probably was. But we got it done. I'll post some pictures soon.

It's the standard run-of-the-mill table--black vinyl padded rail, blue velveteen top for optimum card slide-age. Derek even installed track lighting around the inner lip. Someday we'll hook up cameras so people in the other room can see what we have. Maybe I'll do it with a webcam and Matt can give me tips.

Saturday night was the usual--dinner (wings and cheese bread from a local fave) and a movie (National Treasure--not nearly as horrible as I thought it would be) with Angie.

And Sunday after church we played some poker. What a great weekend.

Thanks for stopping by to read this. My brother Danny set me up with this weblog so if you come often and keep reading and maybe commenting there is a good chance that I'll write here lots.

So Danny is my brother, Matt is my former journalism teacher and current friend, and that might be it for Brendoman.com connections. But that's ok. I'm going for quality not quantity. And those two fellas are quality if I know anything at all.

I'm currently at the University of South Florida in sunny Tampa. I'm working my way toward a degree in mass communications with a focus on advertising. I'm taking a class this summer and working part time doing landscaping. I'm also doing a short internship with Shirley Hutchinson National Advertising.

This will all be keeping pretty busy but I will have more free time than usual as my girlfriend, Angie will be gone for 11 weeks doing some recruiting work for Florida College.

So that's what's up.