Show a kid one dorky thing and see what happens

Okay, I admit it - I did this first as a joke...

Dale, that little impressionable mind, saw it as a goofy thing he could imitate and ran with it. Here's two videos of him scaring the seagulls.





This all started after stopping briefly at Broadway At The Beach because I wanted to see if there were any more noticeable changes in them tearing down The Pavilion. It seemed like a decent night so we went down to the beach, and poked around. It was a little cool, but still warm enough for a sweat shirt to be good enough.

After playing around on the beach a bit we hit the big arcade in the block just past the Pavilion. In there we played the baseball games that you see in the video from when Eric was visiting us. Dale showed up all previous attempts by Eric, Julie, and I at getting the required 28 runs to win a prize and chose a stuffed shark as his prize. We then played a crane game that one of the guys there was nice enough to mess around with too after we lost some quarters, and he won Dale a little ball and a money holder with a dollar bill attached. Dale promptly cashed the dollar bill in for more quarters and played four more games of baseball.

All and all a very nice time, and probably the only time any of us has ever been on a beach in January. :)

Here's a few more pics from our beach time:





...and one more picture taken tonight that's sure to embarrass Dale in years to come.

Dave sees his dream car

It's no secret that I like small cars. Maybe even just saying "small cars" isn't accurate enough. If I could find a car that got 100+ MPG I'd be pretty lenient with the whole car body concept. A seat on top of a few wheels might just do it for me.

We went to North Myrtle Beach for a wine tasting today, and as we're leaving I see my dream car - the Smart For2.

As I'm screaming "Look! Look! Look!" Julie is wondering what accident she's missing from my excited reaction. Then she sees it, and turns the car around. Back we go to see the little bugger.

I have no positive facts on this, but I'm guessing that this model has to be a Smart For2 that was Americanized by Zap! They're the only way you can get one in America until Daimler Chrysler starts selling them here in 2008.

How small is this car? Well, here's Julie for size comparison:

When Julie at 5'2" is taller than the car, it's kinda short.

This is the whole car folks. That's how short it is length-wise.

Notice how you can clearly see our 2003 Honda Civic LX sticking out behind this. If I was at a more straight on angle you'd see the back of the Civic extending beyond both bumpers of the Smart.

Now look at them side by side. The Civic looks as big as a '70s Lincoln Continental when compared to the Smart For2.

Cute little bugger, isn't it? The diesel model they sell in Canada supposedly gets something like 70 MPG, which even exceeds the mileage I got on my 1992 Geo Metro. The panels are also plastic and easily swapped if you want a different color Smart. Personally, where the one above is black with grey trim I'm hoping for a Smart For2 that's green with black trim.

They also make a convertible version of this too, but I'm not sure how quickly they'll be bringing those to the US.

I won't get into the safety stuff on this. If you think it's unsafe, check out all the details on the 'net on these. They're very safe to say the least. Check this out on Google Videos where they run one of these into a 20 ton concrete block at 70 MPH. It moved the concrete block, and bounced off. No, it wasn't exactly drivable after that but you would have survived the crash pretty well.

I know that buying new cars means losing money the second you drive off the lot, but I'm going to be very, very tempted in 2008 when these are hitting dealerships. :)

Mom, Dad, Uncle Fred, and Aunt Sharon playing Wii Sports Bowling

Four 60+ folks playing Wii Sports bowling. Verdict? They had a blast!

Yes, we are still alive

Okay, I didn't realize that we hadn't posted to this blog since September. I knew it'd been a while, but not THAT long.

We have actually been posting to our blog regularly, just not this blog! We're in the final stages of having a house built in Conway, SC, and if things work out the way we want them to we'll hopefully be in soon. You can check the status of the house on our other blog HERE.

Besides that there's lots to report, but why bore you with the details? The quick summary is this:

- Julie has finished another semester of school with flying colors

- Dale did pretty well in football, and his team went undefeated until the last game of the season. They lost the championship in over time.

- The company Dave works for merged with a company out of Atlanta, and that's caused things to pick up quite a bit as they merge the two companies.

- Eric has visited us twice since we last wrote. The first time we saw Alice In Chains at the House Of Blues, and again in December when we went back to the HOB to see GWAR. It was an experience to say the least!

- Bennie and Joann visited us for Thanksgiving, and Dave and Ellen visited us for Christmas. We anxiously wait for the house to be done so next time they visit everyone gets a real bed to sleep on.

- ...and finally, the thing we're all addicted to the most is our new Nintendo Wii. Julie is playing "Rayman Raving Rabbids", Dale is playing "The Grim Adventures Of Billy and Mandy", and Dave's playing "Wii Sports." It's a trip to see everyone playing it. At Christmas we got to see Dave, Ellen, Sharon, and Fred all playing Wii Sports Bowling, and they had a great time. I've posted the video of the four of them playing above.

That's about it folks. We'll try to be better about updating this site in the future.