Space

I dont know why, but I am amazed by space. You know, stars, planets etc. The sky in general just amazes me. Whether it be a sunny blue sky, puffy white clouds or countless stars at night, its just cool. I could stare into the sky all day and not get tired of it. To me its just another sign that God is in control, and that He is real. Who else could think up things like that?

I ran across this picture today and it reiterates my point.


This is the edge of the Orion Nebula. Awesome isnt it. How can you look at that and not know that; 1, there is a God, and that 2, He is so huge that words cant describe! Incredible.






NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this "true color" mosaic of a small portion of the Orion Nebula, taken the Wide Field and Planetary Camera in wide field mode. The image shows a wealth of detail never seen before in the nebula. Newly discovered features include elongated objects oriented on the brightest stars in this region, rapidly expanding plumes of material around young stars and protoplanetary disks.

Big Bend, New job & Snow?

Well, its been a while, again, since my last blog update, so here we go. Marleene and I made a flying (actually we drove) trip to Big Bend National Park a couple of weeks ago. We decided to go during my brief time of leaving my old job and starting my new job. I had a couple of days where I wasn't working for either company and so we decided to pack up and drive to Big Bend, which for those of you who do not know, is in west Texas, down by Mexico, in the "big bend" of Texas. Anyways, we left early on a Thursday morning (about 6am) and drove straight there, it took us about 8 hours and rained most of the way. We were a little worried that we might be having rain in our forecast during our time there, but answer to prayers, the rain stopped for our entire time in Big Bend. It did pick up again on our drive home, but I don't think it rained a drop while we were in the park.

I have been to a lot of places in the US and abroad, but had never been to Big Bend. It was awesome! One of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. Marleene and I made the most of our time there by hiking (about 16 miles in total) through the mountains of Big Bend (yes mountains in Texas!), rafting on the Rio Grande (think Lazy River at Wet-N-Wild) and seeing the sights that are west Texas towns (think, nothing.... there is nothing out there). The town we stayed in was about 5 miles from the west entrance to the park and was home to about 500 people, during the non-summer months. When summer comes, people flee the area because of the unrelenting heat. Our rafting guide said that temps can reach 115 and ground temps can reach 180! That's hot my friend.

We loved just about every minute of our vacation in Big Bend and were already planning our trip back on the drive home, promising to be in better shape so we can hike some of the more challenging trails. We took a lot of pictures, some of which you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45004361@N00/sets/72157600045511239/

We made the drive home in about 7 hours (makes a big difference when you take all the right roads) and promptly rested for the work week ahead. I started my new job as Enhancement Manager for Native Land Design that Monday morning at 7am. I am in my 3rd week there and really enjoying it. There is a big difference between designing landscape plans for homeowners who are spending their hard earned money as compared to businesses spending someone else's money to spruce up their building. The first 3 jobs I have bid have gone $40k, $5k & $25k! What does Enhancement Manager mean you may be asking, well basically I am in charge of making sure that the properties that our company maintains (does maintenance for, mowing etc...) look good, if they need new annual color, I will propose a change, if their loropetalum is thin, I propose to rip them out and put something new in. I will also meet with homeowners who are interested in large scale landscape designs. So I am doing a lot of the same stuff I was doing with Choate Irrigation, just on a larger scale.

And I must have made the right decision to make the jump from comfortable ol Choate, where I knew what was expected of me, I knew the people, I knew my job inside and out, to exciting and new Native Land Design, where I didn't know what was expected of me, or the people, or really what my job would entail, because it snowed the day before Easter! Now, you may not take that as a sign from above that I made the right decision, but I will. I love snow! And it NEVER snows in Texas, not in the fall, not in the winter and certainly not in APRIL! And yet it did. April 7, 2007 we enjoyed a day long snow storm. Marleene and I (and Maggie and Zoe) were in China Spring at my parents for Easter and marveled at the non-stop snow storm that went on from about 10am - 9pm on Saturday. It was incredible!

Actual picture of snow falling in Texas!!!

Easter Sunday the snow was all but gone, we enjoyed a great lunch with my mom's side of the family and headed back home to rest up for the coming week. Next week we load back up and head to Arlington for Marleene's great-aunt's 100th birthday! Don't worry, its not a surprise party!