Recently in Site Updates Category

I can almost hear it.... "Ahhh, Dad there's an awful lot of Richmond Pro guys here. This is going to be a fast race!"
After my dismal 14th place finish at the Tour De Beach I decided to hang out and take some pictures of the Pro 1/2/3 race. At least I would have something to show for the day! They have been uploaded a bunch of pictures to the photo gallery in the Sports section. Here's the link to the gallery: Tour De Beach 1,2,3 Race

The Casey Criterium Results have been posted online here. 

Today was the second Snowball Criterium at the wonderful Va Beach Criterium Course. It was cold, it was windy, it was a "wonderful" day for a race! At least it wasnt raining!
Due to the fact that I have been sick and off the bike for over a week I chose not to race. I didn't think that
hacking up a lung on a field of riders was the right thing to do. Instead I chose to take spend some time behind the camera. I also played official and worked the cameras for a couple of races as well. It was a fun day and it looks like VACA is going to enter the 20th Century and buy a mac for the officials kit!

Here's the link to the pictures that I took at the Snowball Criterium #2 race.... the order of the pictures got a little mixed up as they were imported into the gallery program, but if you were there you'll know which race the pictures are from...... The pictures!

Our normal Tuesday night spot has been on the down slide since the previous managers returned to Mexico.  The new manager is a really nice guy, but the food, service, and especially the margaritas are just not the same.  So we have been looking around for some options for our Mandatory Tuesday Margarita Night.  That hunt lead us to a new Mexican style restaurant, Cozumel Restaurante Cantina.  They recently opened in what was 32 Degrees on General Booth Blvd. 
We may have found a place with some hope!  We were given a warm welcome as soon as we entered and were promptly seated at a table large enough to hold all six of us.  The restaurant is decorated in a neat island/mexican theme and has a nice family friendly feel to it.  The first thing we noticed was how much quieter it was than our previous spot.  We didn't have to yell to converse.
The menu was the only slight disappointment of the evening.  It contained pretty much the normal selection of mexican dishes that can be found anywhere in town.  Missing was the variety of "different" dishes that our other place has such as the Alambres, Cochinita Pibil, and Pollo con Arroz.  After searching of the menu for something different than the normal burritos and chimichangas I went for the Pollo Special.  It was chicken breast topped with Chorizo and chesse.  On the side were tortillas, rice, and salad.  The food was awesome and plentiful.  Other people at our table ordered fajitas and were also very happy with the quantity and quality of food.  The cactus appetizer was also good.  Even better than the food were the margaritas.  They werent' half price like our normal Tuesday night margaritas, but they were awesome and worth the price!  The service was awesome too!

Check this place out it's well worth a try!

Now tonight I have to work twice as hard on the trainer to work off the food and margarita!... grrrrr.

Over the last couple of weeks my spare time has been gobbled up by performing site updates. I have been trying to learn a new version of a site publishing platform called Movable Type as well as a photo gallery package called Gallery2. Once I feel confident enough to support these packages completely it will be a complete redesign for my work web site Gibson Equipment. 

Both the gallery and main site have a lot of features that the older versions didn’t have.  Some of the biggest changes….. on the main site there is a “tag cloud” that will make it easier to find post from the past, the site search works a lot better, and publishing a post is a LOT easier for me now. The biggest changes can be found in the gallery though!  It is completely re-vamped! The theme doesn’t integrate as nicely with the theme of the main site, but I will work on that in the near future.  The search feature actually works on the site now, the galleries have been reorganized to make the easier to navigate, there's a slide show feature, and the coolest is the shopping cart.  We normally upload copies of the original photographs that we shoot, they files are large but allow printing of images up to and sometimes even larger than an 8x10.  With the shopping cart function a photo can be added to
                                           the shopping cart and print ordered from a couple of different online print services.  I  ordered some prints of the photograph to the left today from Shutterfly.  In addition to the gallery upgrades there have been several galleries added that weren't in the old version.

Anyways, check out the main page and the photo galleries.  Spend some time trying out the new features and feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think about the updates.

We'll see how this goes... I upgraded the blog too version 4 today.
There sure are a lot of new features and a whole lot of learning to do now!

I finally got behind a camera again and snapped some shots this weeekend. The link below is to the gallery of pics taken at the VB Cyclocross race at Mount Trashmore today..... not sure I am quite ready for a race like this but it still looked like a lot of fun Congrats to Fat Frogs team mate Daryl for getting out there with his heavy mountain bike and holding his own!!!

There seemed to be a good turn out and it was the changing terrain of the course allowed for some very interesting picture opportunities. Anyways.... check out the gallery:The Stormyworld.net Image Gallery - Va Beach Cyclocross 11/18/2007

I've been busy the last few nights getting pictures up in the image galleries.
I added pictures of the Beach Eye Care crew from their Halloween escapades.
I dont know who this is, but the face was classic!

Who's the biggest clown of the all?


Pictures of our Pumpkin Carving night at Ellen and Matt's house have been put up.


and.... last but not least, pictures from the night of Halloween.
Check out this scary crew!


Oh wait.... How could I forget these, these pictures are from our excursion to Hunt Club Farms on a 95 degree day to pick out pumpkins. It was kind of hard to get in to the "sprit" of Halloween when you are sweating your you know whats off!



The Stormyworld.net Image Gallery - Last additions

A criterium race in Virginia Beach... who would have ever thought that would happen?
September 23rd was the first crit race to be held at the new track setup around the Soccer Stadium. The course was great, plenty wide, smooth, and in a nice location. This will be an asset to the cycling community in the area. It also means the criterium training series may actually be a possibility again. Woo hooo!
As for the actual race, I rode the first of two races. My race was made up of the Juniors, my category (Cat 5), Womens, and Masters. There was a pretty strong head wind on the back side of the course that made the race quite interesting. I finished 6th over all and 4th in my Category. The 2 finishers ahead of me that were not in my category were fellow team mates, Lucas and Elliot. They are some crazy fast Cat 3 Juniors, great job guys!
Things I learned in this, my 3rd criterium race:
Don't try to bridge up to AJ, Lucas, and Elliot when you are 1/2 a lap behind them and you still have 12 laps to go.
Riding criteriums can get pretty monotonous by the 10th or 11th time around the same loop.
All in all it was great time and I am looking forward to next season now that I am getting closer to being in shape enough to hang on to the Peleton in these races.

I added some cycling links on the side bar. Blogs I have come across and some other stuff.

We had a great time with some great friends last night. Eating some of Big H's famous burgers, sausage, and a bunch of other stuff. Following the feast was a few games of Scene It. Of course the guys stomped all over the girls until we got to the Disney version of the game.
Even Jessi had a good time... can you tell by this picture...

Here's a link to more pictures from the evening:
The Stormyworld.net Image Gallery - Dinner with the O's 5/19/2007

I am posting this from a laptop, a laptop running Ubuntu Linux.
Not only is this a laptop running Linux, but it's connected to our wireless network and running the proper screen resolution!!! :D How cool is that. I am doing all this while Devon is playing on Amber's Macbook computer. That's right no Micro$oft software, no bootleg software, no pirated software!!!

On March 4th Amber and I made a "pilgrimage" to my favorite brewery, Dogfish Head. Dog Fish Head Brewery is a small craft brewery that specializes in beer that are lot different than the average beer. One of my favorites is Raison D'tere which is an ale brewed with raisins. Another is Midas Touch that has corrainder and muscat grapes in it.
The drive was only 3.5 hours up the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland. Along the way we made a stop at a winery and a small wine store called Teller Wines.
The winery was nice and had some pretty good wines that cater to those who like wines on the sweeter side. The Teller Wine store was great. It was small but was very well stocked with Beer, Wine, and Spirits. The employee that was working that day was very attentive and extremely knowledgeable. We walked out with a couple bottles of good wine and a four pack of the hard to find Dog Fish Head Immort Ale that the Dog Fish Head store didn't even have in stock. It's amazing how much more you spend when you have excellent service in a retail establishment.
We had a great time and we had some great beer. We can't wait for the next trip up!
Me at our destination...



The Haunted House.....

Heres's a link to the rest of the pictures.The Stormyworld.net Image Gallery - Dog Fish Head Trip

Today Devon was awarded his Yellow Belt! Click on the link below the picture to see the rest of the pics!


The Stormyworld.net Image Gallery - Devon's Yellow Belt Ceremony

This past weekend Devonsan completed his mastery of the white belt karate moves and has advanced on to the Yellow Belt level. Good job Devon! We are all proud!

The Stormyworld.net Image Gallery - Devon Gets His Yellow Belt! Feb 10, 2007/DSC 0002

I didn't want Lenore to feel left out, so here's a picture of her.

The Stormyworld.net Image Gallery - Last additions/lenore 02-14-07 (Large)

Recent Gallery Uploads... click HERE

Thanks to Gary, Robin, Jason, and Devon I was put to work! Thanks for the Home Depot GC guys!!!
Those of you who have known us for a while know how great Amber and I, mostly me, are at deciding on a color and getting painting done. The ugly green that was in our kitchen forced us to do some painting so we headed off to Home Depot. We spotted a gallon of a great tan color in the Ooops paint section for $3.00. Once applied to the walls this wonderful tan was a bit too drab so back to Homey Depot we went. After much comparing of paint chips and we settled on a color named after one of Amber's favorite things... wine! The color was called Chianti.
Here's a couple of small pics.... click HERE to go to the gallery.

See more pics here:
The Stormyworld.net Image Gallery - Our New House (hopefully!)