BlakeAtwood.com

…the promised update isn’t coming today, but, there’s this, a nephew that cracks me up. I just wish the cameraman wouldn’t have been laughing so hysterically and going all Bourne Identity with the cinematography.

I bought a computer for my grandmother recently. Before you start thinking that I’m the best grandson ever, she bought it with her own money; I was just the middleman. We bought her a Dell because I received an email with a “Back-to-School” special that was right in her price range, even giving her more computer than she needs.

Since we wanted to install the system this Sunday, when I head up to Waco to see her and the rest of my family, and since the last time I ordered a system from Dell (a refurbed desktop) it came from Round Rock, I told my grandmother I’d have them ship it to me in Georgetown, just a few miles from Round Rock, in hopes that it would arrive via free 3-5 day ground shipping before Sunday.

After checking the tracking number, I was shocked to see that the computer was being shipped from Tennessee! I was saddened by the fact, but chalked it up to the fact that my grandmother’s computer was not a refurb unit, and, ergo, was not being shipped from Round Rock. Oh well.

I just checked the tracking number again tonight (Friday). Where is the computer currently sitting? At a DHL station. In Waco!

I’m scheduled to receive the packages on Monday, one day after I’ve gone to visit her.

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Brought to you by a drug rehab recovery center in Malibu. Really? Really.

My family has apparently started a summer tradition of picking a concert at the Smirnoff Center in Dallas and all getting tickets. It began haphazardly last year with Chicago and Huey Lewis. You know, when the whole family goes (siblings, cousins, parents) you have to cater to all ages. Luckily, this year, and just this past weekend, we saw Ben Folds  and John Mayer. It was a good concert, not great, but good. Enjoyable at least. Ben Folds was a little more experimental than some of my family would have liked, and his cover of a Dr. Dre song was…interesting, to say the least. John Mayer’s a phenomenal guitar player, but should stick to playing, not talking. Too bad we couldn’t have all gotten Police tickets.

Possibly even more fun was the golf the next day at the Lake Park Golf Club in Lewisville. It’s a straight, short course, par 70, so I felt like I was doing a lot better than normal, which I was, at least for the front nine. I think I had 4 or 5 pars for the round, which is great for me. I also had the best shot of the day. I was two inches from the hole, a gimme, and I was goofing around, taking a large backswing with my putter and pretending I was going to launch the ball somewhere. I hit the top of the ball with the bottom of my putter, the ball spun high into the air, then dropped straight into the hole. I will never be able to do that again.

We ate at Babe’s that night, a restaurant in Sanger, TX. Great food, and the waitresses sing, and they’re actually good. Also, there’s a cutout of John Wayne that peers into the window of the women’s restroom. (I only know this because the Woman told me so – I don’t often visit women’s restrooms, what with their sofas and bathroom vanities). Going to Babe’s is almost as much a ritual as the family summer concerts are becoming.

It’s always interesting what kinds of rituals form as the newer generations grow up. To the loyal few, do you have family rituals?

Also, my grandmother made a point to say how much she appreciates the fact that our extended family gets along so well. It’s something I thought was absolutely normal growing up, but the older I get the more I realize how fortunate I am to have the family I have.

Josiah Daniel joined the outside world on April 11. He made it here safely, and is now probably sleeping, eating, or doing that other thing that babies do. His two sisters, 5 year old twin girls, will hopefully learn how not to pull him both ways at the same time.

In other news, we visited the hospital a few days after he was born. We made it to the hospital approximately twenty minutes before tornadoes began ripping through the Fort Worth area. The Texas Motor Speedway had to be evacuated as it was a race weekend. Some One was looking out for us.

I’d have pictures to show, but I keep losing my USB cable for my digital camera, so pictures may or may not be forthcoming.

My cousin was married in New Orleans on Friday, Nov. 12, which meant I got the once in a lifetime opportunity to go to a bachelor party that included a stop at the House of Blues, a stop at the Blues Cafe, and a walk down Bourbon Street…at dark (Be careful if you click). And I thought Austin was strange.

I also got to stay for the weekend and my wife and I did all of the tourist things you could do. Before the wedding, we made a stop at Cafe Du Mond, which is the place you have to go if ever you go to New Orleans. When they talk about beignets, this is where they’re talking about. After getting powdered sugar everywhere, my benevolent Uncle paid for his family and for us to go on a carriage ride/tour of the city, which was quite informative and fun and provided many pictures, humorous and otherwise.

On Saturday, we went to the Aquarium of the Americas, where I took a lot of blurry pictures of really interesting sea creatures, and touched a shark. We then proceeded to see “Santa vs. the Snowman 3d” in the nearby IMAX theater, a funny Christmas movie that my wife wanted to see because it looked like a funny Christmas movie. We walked around downtown for ages, did some shopping at the Riverwalk, then took a 2-hour walking tour of haunted places in New Orleans.

Our guide was a trip. Imagine a flamboyant Lurch with blonde hair. We saw the house that “House of the Rising Sun” derived its name from. We heard grisly tales of horror and tortured souls, one roams the rooftops clad in nothing but her ghastly birthday suit. (The man she wanted to marry, but who did not want to marry her, jokingly told her that he would marry her if she stayed on the rooftop all night long in the nude. He hardly thought she would go through with it, but her love blinded her to his sarcasm. She did it, and, being as nipply as it was that night, she died. So now she waits, sometimes in a wedding dress, and sometimes in nothing at all). We ended the night with dinner at a fine restaurant called Tujagues.

Sunday morning was the worst, as it was my bright idea to take the bus (otherwise known as public transportation) to downtown. (We’d been staying in a suburb across the Mississippi River). After finally finding where we needed to be to catch the bus, we waited for OVER AN HOUR, and sometimes in the rain, for the bus. It finally came, much to our drenched delight. Once we got downtown, first we ate at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. (and they do have good shrimp), and then we took a 2 hour cruise on the Natchez Riverboat. The weather wasn’t all that nice, but it was good enough. I took plenty of pictures.

We took the bus back to our hotel, grabbed a taxi to the airport, flew to Houston, then to Austin, and were in our cozy beds by midnight. It was a great trip, and I, though wearied by the amount of things we did all within a few days, feel refreshed by seeing and savoring a new place, as well as seeing my cousin get married.