Aperture Science Chronological Life Data Tracking System

For saying her name and then snapping the photo as the turned around, I think this came out rather well!

( She doesn’t like cameras. )

This last Saturday I overslept.

It put a bit of a wrinkle in my plans.

See, Jess and I were planning on hitting the beach, and I had an errand I was hoping to get done that morning. I didn’t really have time, though, so to the beach we went!

There’s a nifty little park not too far from the apartment. It has a water park for the kids, camp grounds, nature trails, boat and kayak rentals at the lake, and beach access – very cool place to go! The first date that Jess and I went on was renting a double kayak and paddling around the lake, so I thought it might be fun to revisit that.

The weather disagreed.

However! Not ones to be easily deterred, Jess and I drove over to the beach access and made our way down to the sand under an overcast, drizzling sky. Not really optimal beach weather, but it really cuts down on the possibility of sunburn and reduces the number of people at the beach. We left our shoes up on the beach and made our way down to the surf, and had just gotten our feet wet when I saw something black and pointy and moving sticking up out of the water about 100 yards out.

OMYGAWDSHARK!

Just kidding! They were dolphins! It was kinda hard to tell from the shore, but there had to be at least two groups of them, with one group having 8-10 dolphins in it. They were just swimming along parallel to the shore, breaking the water every so often in that non-jump that dolphins do. I’d never seen dolphins off our beach before, so it was very awesome. Both of us were wishing we had a boat or a kayak so we could go out where they were.

As we were walking up the beach, we noticed something else that I hadn’t seen on the beach before – starfish! Hundreds of starfish had washed up onto a small section of beach, and many of them were still alive; we could pick them up and see the little appendages on their arms wiggling about in the air. I think between the two of us we probably tossed about 30 or so back into the ocean for another chance.

After some more wading the smell from the nearby cookouts was becoming very enticing, so Jess and I headed up to Chili’s for lunch – burgers for us both! I had something with blue cheese, and Jess had one with mushrooms on it. So very yummy.

After lunch we curled up for a nap, but that only lasted an hour or so before I had to go take care of some work stuff. Boooo, work. But…. I also got to go run my errand. Yay errand!

Work done and errand accomplished, I headed back to Jess’ house to drag her out of bed. She didn’t want to get up, but after much persuasion (read – tickling of the feet) she crawled from her bed. We headed back down towards the beach, except this time our destination was a store – Kilwin’s! This store was also part of our first date! Jess got some ice cream and I grabbed a chocolate shake, then we wandered around for a bit nibbling our treats before heading down to the sand.

Dusk was starting to fall – there were no dolphins or starfish on this part of the beach, just groups of people milling around. Jess and I strolled up and down the sand a bit, chatting and contemplating the oddity of the sand bar while the sun went down. After about 30 minutes or so we began wandering back to the car and wound up stopping just before the boardwalk that crossed the dunes. I wriggled a little box out of my pocket, said “I didn’t plan the dolphins and starfish, but I totally planned this part”, showed her the engagement ring that I’d picked up earlier, and asked her to marry me.

She totally said yes.

Man, this weekend just flew by.

Thursday Jess and I headed down to Disney to make use of the last day of our four-day passes. Our destination: Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Since the park was open until 8 (and honestly, DAK isn’t that large of a park) we didn’t leave the apartment until 10 or so, arriving at the park right around one.

I made Jess go down the slides in The Boneyard where I used to work. She didn’t seem entirely thrilled about having to do it, but she got me back by getting me soaked on the water ride.

It was a pretty fun day, though! We hit all the major stuff we wanted to, had some pretty yummy food, and made it back home around 11 pm or so.

Friday (Happy explosion day!) we met David, Alice, Brandon, and Jessica – who I will try to consistently refer to here as Jessica so as to avoid confusion with Jess – at the Orange Park Mall. After a yummy lunch in the mall’s food court, we all trekked over to the theater to see Get Smart. The movie was surprisingly good!

Jess and I hung out for a bit that evening, and then I went back to the apartment and listened to things blow up in the area… until 2 AM.

Saturday we hijacked Jess’ mom’s truck and helped move a desk into my parents’ house that my boss happened to be ditching. Also worked on packing up what little bit of stuff I still have left at my parents’ house – now it’s just all in various boxes that are scattered around my apartment.

You’ll probably notice that I did a fair bit of driving throughout the weekend so far – Disney is probably about a 300 mile round trip, and the other two days I drove at least 50 miles. Not so Sunday! I didn’t get up until sometime after 10-11, and I didn’t get out of bed until after 1. It was nice to just lay there half-awake for a while, then pull the laptop over and fuss around with it a bit. Other than some laundry and an interesting attempt at cooking eggs and bacon, it was a fairly lazy day. I almost got away with not having to drive anywhere at all except for a trip to Jess’ house. I definitely love going over there, but ugh – sometimes I just really, really don’t feel like driving. Anywhere.

Now that the weekend is over (I still can’t believe all four days have already come and gone), I have to get busy finishing moving in to the apartment. I’m having people over for dinner Friday!

One year ago today, an extremely nervous person asked an absolutely amazing girl if she might be interested in a date sometime.

Well, it’s been a fantastic year so far! Here’s hoping the rest get even better.

<3 Jess

So once again, Jess and I got bored with Jacksonville and headed down to Walt Disney World for the day.

Our target this time? The Magic Kingdom.

This is probably gonna be a somewhat long post, so click the link below for more!

continue reading…

Jess’ jaw is still recovering from the surgery, and because of this she’s still on a mushy foods diet. Pudding, Jello, macaroni, and so forth.

Luckily this list includes ice cream!

Since even vanilla ice cream can start to get monotonous after a bit, I took Jess over to Kilwin’s. It’s one of those fantastic places that makes their own chocolate (I mean right there in front of you, too), and they also have a magnificent selection of ice cream. Jess got something with blueberry in it, and I had a root beer float.

Yummy!

Kilwin’s has two locations in our town – one at the beach, and one at the outdoor mall. We went to the latter. After we enjoyed our yummy, yummy ice cream, we went and checked out a few different stores in the area – one of these was PetSmart. I dunno why, but that’s always been a fun store to visit for me! Every time I go though, I have to restrain the urge to adopt a cat.

Jess and I were wandering through the fish section when inspiration stuck! I looked at her and asked if she’s ever seen a turtle eat fish, and she just kinda gave me a funny look back before saying no. We happened to be right by the goldfish at the time, so I pointed out the appropriately sized ones and said that every so often we buy a few for the turtle to snack on.

We wound up buying about 10 and taking them home for the turtle! Her tank was pretty nasty, so Jess watched the turtle wander around the yard for a while while we scrubbed the tank. Yaaaay. After the tank was cleaned and the turtle returned, in went the fish!

You know that saying about a goldfish having a bad memory? So true. They’d all congregate in the corner of the tank, and suddenly *snap!* among them appears a turtle head! You would think that the fish might wise up and go hide under the rocks and scenery, but they always wound up back in that same corner.

It took the turtle about 10 minutes (the water was cold, and she was moving kinda sluggishly. That and she may not have been hungry.), and several near deaths for the fish, but finally she chomped one in half and gobbled it down! We all cheered.

So now when people ask Jess what dates I’ve taken her lately, she can say “To watch a turtle eat fish!”.

Poor Jess. I got to drive her to the dentist today to have all four wisdom teeth pulled.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

I gotta hand it to the dentist. Four teeth really isn’t that small a deal, but we were back in the car headed home after no more than 30 minutes. They had to roll Jess out to the car, though. She was very groggy, and couldn’t speak. Her bottom lip is all puffed out, too. It’d almost look cute except for the bloody gauze packed in her cheeks.

Now starts the hard part: no solid foods for the next few days, and a very limited diet for a while after that.

I think I’ll go buy her some ice cream tomorrow.

Jess and I took advantage of our four-day passes and headed down to Disney yesterday – Disney’s Hollywood Studios, to be specific.

It used to be Disney-MGM studios; I have no clue when they changed the name.

Anyway! The day was a blast. I’d only hit a few major attractions back when I used to work for Disney, and Jess had never been to that park at all, so a good bit of it was fresh and new for us. Jess loved Tower of Terror, and I got to see her geek out over the Star Tours stuff.

Jess also had my camera and went somewhat nuts with it. Pictures soon!

On a more somber note: As we were driving down, we witnessed a car accident. In the close lane on the other side of the freeway ( headed back towards town ) a car just randomly cut a hard left – at freeway speed, mind you – and plunged nosefirst into the guardrail. It hit with enough momentem that it slid off the rail and continued back the way it was originally headed for a short bit.

The timing was such that I drove through the flying debris from the wreck, and if the guardrail hadn’t been there, it would have been us that the car had hit.

I don’t think that’s a memory that will be fading any time soon.