Cherry / Silver Albuquerque Handball Tournament

This weekend my family (my mom and dad) and I played in the annual Cherry / Silver Handball tournament in Albuquerque. The Cherry / Silver Handball tournament is well organized by Mr. Carl Brand. It is a single match, doubles tournament. Everyone is placed either on the Cherry team, or the Silver team. The team which wins the most doubles matches, wins the tournament. Everyone plays a single match, so it is not the most intense tournament in the world, but it is a whole lot of fun. My mother recorded the below video of the final few minutes of my match.

The below videos are movies I recorded of my father's match. My dad is in the baggy black shorts.

This clip begins with my dad's team serving at nine.

This video clip begins at 13 (my dad) serving 10.

The final in the series begins when the score is 17-17.

The below image is of me and my doubles partner.

The Cherry / Silver tournament was a lot of fun. The hospitality event was held at the German American club, complete with drink coupons for tournament players.

In addition to the tournament, my parents helped me on a construction project around my house. I needed to stucco a wall, and my mom and dad helped.

The above image shows how we 'fixed' the motor on my cement mixer.

My mom always makes extremely good, healthy, food to eat.

The Cherry/Silver tournament, construction project, and going out for drinks at the Low Spirits Blues Club as a family made for a nice weekend.

New Year's Eve 2010

This New Year's was pleasant. I spent some time listening to Efrain mix, worked on some software briefly, went to an intense church service and then to a house party with my friend Sharlene.

My buddy Efrain has become very involved in his church, and wanted to go to a dinner and a service being offered by a similar church here in Albuquerque. Efrain, our friend Samantha, and I, went to the dinner put on by the mega-church Calvary. All three of us went to college together in Socorro.

Samantha

Efrain

The dinner began with a Mariachi band playing (what Efrain explained to me were) traditional Mexican songs. Efrain was able to translate whenever a double entendre was present in the song, and explain the different meanings for the gringos.

Any idea which photo was taken with Efrain's phone?

The food was Mexican - tamales, tortillas and posole. For vegetarians, it was a salad from McDonald's across the street.

Samantha - Vegetarian

Efrain - Carnivore

After the meal, a Christian version of Santana played in the main auditorium. Two Or More was the group which "blends blues, soul, pop and Latin rock for a very unique sound..."

The sermon was well done. I have noticed that the mega-churches tend to have much more captivating speakers than the traditional denominations. They also incorporate technology to a much greater degree all throughout their endeavors.

After the church service, I went to a house party with my friend Sharlene. Sharlene does a little bit of modeling. Below are a very pictures I like of her.

This is one of the nicest pictures I have seen of this part of town.

She's really not Muslim.

It was fun meeting a few of Sharlene's friends and talking with them at the party. Since I drove, and have been coughing for about a month, I decided drinking wouldn't be that good of an idea. Despite the last of revelry, this New Year's Eve was nice.

Software Development with DJ Efrain on the Turn Tables

One of my favorite ways to study as an undergraduate student was on my friend Efrain's couch, with a fire blazing in his wood burning stove and listening to him spin records on his two turn tables. Today I was able to enjoy a similar situation while developing software on my laptop.

Efrain was working on his New Year's Eve mix while I was at his house. The couch and fire were missing, but it was still a nice way to work on software.

DJ Efrain

Here is an MP3 download of the mix (104 megabytes). I may spend some time trying to build a Flash component of the mix to embed directly in my blog, but I thought this would be good for now. Efrain also has this mix available online if you feel like streaming it here.