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.

Merry Christmas Artmas!

Merry Christmas Artmas! This year, my sister gave everyone in our family a number of paintings, and I gave my parents my tile table. As a result of this massive art exchange, we started to use the term which either my father or I invented to describe this holiest of days, Artmas. Unfortunately, Artmas is not adequately captured in its full glory by a cheap camera phone with a partially cracked lens.

Last Minute Grout Work - Christmas Artmas Eve 2010

This was taken with my mother's amazing camera.
I love working with tile, especially when I individually created every single tile.
Working on a fun project with a nice fire is about the most fun way I could imagine spending Christmas Artmas.

I had to cut four tiles to place a Zia in the center. My mother was not exactly thrilled that her front room became a construction zone, but she understood with it being Christmas Artmas and all.

I'm not sure why my eyes often times look three quarters closed when I smile for a picture...

My mother decided she was sick of waiting for grandchildren, so she purchased some from a gypsy woman. This is me, my father, and my two adopted siblings, Rufus (named after J. Rufus Fears, the best lecturer ever) and Juliet. My clothing is post-lumerjacking.

The Final Product - Only about two years in the making

My father will likely come up with an attractive oak edge for the table. The tile work is done, but the project still requires some sort of edging to complete the look.

This is one of the many paintings my sister gave me. This image was taken from www.autumnstinar.com without permission.

My good friend Oleg, and his mother and sister, gave me an expensive watch for Christmas Artmas. Oleg is (correctly) convinced that I need to upgrade my wardrobe, starting with a nice watch and some shoes. I agree with him.

My father playing Alan Gast at handball at the Deming Country Club.

I had a very nice time in Silver City with my family. In addition to the wonderful presents I received, playing handball with my family, building fires and doing a little lumberjacking all made it a very nice vacation.

Thanksgiving 2010

I have many things to be thankful for. The first thing I am thankful for is my family. My parents have been extremely loving and supportive throughout my life. The gifts they have given me in terms of skills, attitudes and perspectives have been invaluable. I am also thankful for my sister. She always has a way of making everything beautiful. My friends also have been a very supportive force in my life that I am thankful for. Whenever I feel bad, I think about my wonderful family and the friends. Sometimes I feel sad about the friends that I don't see quite as much anymore, but I give thanks for everything they have taught me through direct interaction and reflection.

This Thanksgiving, I went to Silver City. My friend Oleg came down for the amazing Thanksgiving dinner my mom made (the baked broccoli with blue cheese, and the turkey legs, were my favorite) and to help on a construction project.

My father is converting an old shop into a guest house. Over the Thanksgiving break, we build the frame for the floor to sit on.

Oleg helping prepare the masonry wall for a supporting 2x10.

This kid is named James. He is probably the best worker I have ever seen help at my parent's place. He's an expert welder, and also quite skilled at general construction. He single handedly anchored all of the supports into the masonry with my dad's hammer drill as well as helped out with all of the other construction.

My Dad

Oleg Semenov - мой друг

However, Oleg Semenov does not like to be explicitly identified on my blog, and he decided to use violence to coerce this citizen journalist into silence. The below images provide photographic evidence.

Everything is all framed in. None of this will be visible whatsoever when the floor is put on, and the walls are up.

The framing project was a nice way to spend time with my friends and family over the holiday weekend. Of course, as a good American, it is important to celebrate Consumptionmas. This year for Consumptionmas, I purchased a laptop for $400 from Walmart. Such... Low... Prices... My father was especially interested in my Consumptionmas plans this year, and he was kind enough to go to Walmart for me after he finished his work in Silver City early in the morning while I was still asleep. The Consumptionmas revelers were out in such force, that by about 7:00 a.m. my father purchased the second-to-last laptop for me. My budget was around $400, and I am very satisfied I was able to spend barely over $400 and get this laptop.

Probably the most fun part of the trip was dancing with Jennifer at the amazing Flame Convention Center in Silver City. The Flame is a gigantic metal building with three or so partitions. I believe each partition contains a bar, and can basically be it's own venue relatively independently of the other partitions. During the weekend festivities, two of the partitions were combined. Jennifer knows my family, and our parents know each other, but this was the first time we met. She is extremely into Latin dancing. Thanks to David Romero down in Socorro from my days at New Mexico Tech, I am decent enough at salsa dancing to be able to improvise my swing dancing moves in without feeling completely retarded. Of course, drinking alcohol before hand always helps *with the way one perceives* dancing. *May not actually help with the reality of dancing.

No trip to Silver City is complete without visiting my uncle, Rob Stinar. It's always nice stopping by to see how he's doing.