Cruise Pictures!

Well, they are about 3 weeks late but here are some pictures from my cruise to Cozumel and Grand Cayman. Enjoy!

Here are the girls from Orlando that we hung out with a bunch

The hot tub - we spent about 50% of our time on the boat here

A pic of us driving a jeep around Mexico

Me riding a donkey with a Mexican 40oz

The boys

We commandeered a table and started playing beerpong on it. I'm
intensely coaching Brice right here.

We took a lot more pictures but I don't have the time to post 'em all right now.

Damn

Well, I've lost the wireless internet connection that I was stealing at my apartment so I can only get online at work now. On top of that I've been working a lot more and lot harder at my job so I really don't have any time at the office to get on this blog.

The good news is: I'm going on a cruise with all my Lakeland boys next week. I'll be back just in time to get to the Ides at Mamaw's though, so I'm excited.

See everyone soon!

The 'Burg

Last weekend I went to St. Pete to celebrate my big brother's birthday. I wanted to post some pics from it but I forgot to get them from Casey's camera/computer. I had a great time and as usual - DJ Mingle Mixx threw a damn good party.

Just wanted to say thanks Casey for letting me be a part of your extravaganza. Let's do another one in ten years...

(If you have pictures please send them to me)

Pictures!

I've been working my butt off the last couple weeks but I figured I'd take some time to post pictures from the last month or so. Here are a few:

Here is a picture from my friend's birthday dinner (she's getting old so she needs a sippy-cup to drink her wine now)

...Later on after a few drinks at the b-day dinner

Two friends of mine: Vanessa and Carrie. Vanessa actually went to FSU at the same time I did but we didn't meet until I moved to Austin. She saw me in a sports bar when I was wearing a FSU Water Polo shirt and we've been friends since then.
This is my neighbor Tanya that watches all the UFC pay-per-views with me. Her mom is from France and speaks little English.

This is Tanya with one of the bartenders from a great dive bar we went to. This woman was very obliging and let Tanya behind the bar to take this.

Tanya's dog, Anna. I think she's about 95 in dog years.

The three pieces of art that my sister-in-law, Shirin, did for me. Can you guess what they mean?

The seat covers for my kitchen chairs that my mom upholstered:

My old chest of drawers that I sanded and stained (I hope it looks fine to you mom)

Trips to FL and Other Stuff

I got back to Texas this week after spending a long weekend in Tallahassee, FL (thanks mom for setting it up!) visiting my boys who still live there. After my plane got to Tally we hung out for a little bit and went out to eat at some new restaurant in the city. Then me, Brice, David, and our other friend Crispy (real name Chris) went to a couple of bars in order to try to increase the guest list for the party we were having at David's house the next day. Needless to say we all channeled our "Mingle Mixx" side and ended up meeting a bunch of people to invite to the party. It was awesome. Later on, after we got back to the house, I showed all the guys Gabe and Shirin's DVD they made me of funny internet videos. They friggin' loved it. Good job Modaresi-Beal's!

The next night we had the party and had a truly great time. I won't give any details but ya gotta believe that any night that allows me to both bartend for the party AND give 3am jiu-jitsu lessons is a good night.

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing...I hung out around the house and played Rock Band with the guys and called up some old friends of mine that I hadn't seen in a while. I ended up leaving Tally late on Monday night.

When I got back to Austin I was pretty rested up...and good thing. On my first day back to work I already had two new cases waiting for me and during the week I got two more. I also had a huge family team meeting to help facilitate because one of the kids on my caseload was in the juvenile mental institution and needed a serious plan of action before the weekend started. Geez.

So we're supposed to try to close as many cases as we get in order to keep our caseloads even (or like I'm trying to do - close more than I get so I don't have a million families to deal with). Well, I got four cases this week and closed one. It's not looking good people. My supervisor says that you just have to ride out some of these busy weeks and then close a lot of cases on a slow week. We'll see if that philosophy works out for me...

The Working Man

I had every intention of putting up a bunch of new pictures but I really have been doing nothing but working this week. I'm kind of playing catch-up with a few cases I have so I don't get backlogged. I need to maintain my reputation as the best CPS employee from Florida (There's actually only one other guy that I know of in this competition but I'm pretty sure I have him beat). I think I put in about 50 hours this week already (mainly because I had to work this past weekend) and I still have to go to work on Friday. Geez...

I'm thinking about taking off to Florida this weekend just to get away for a little bit though. I hope my boss is feeling generous and will let me have a day off...

What To Do With the Weekend?

(don't worry Modaresi-Beal's and Mom, I will soon have pictures of your wonderful editions to my apartment...next blog probably)

Well, this weekend had several possibilities for plans. At first, my brother Casey was going to come visit me in Austin and we were going to do stuff that would most likely get us arrested but sure as hell would have been fun. Because of the flight situation though, Casey won't be able to pass-ride so that one is a no-go.

Then I thought about driving to Tallahassee to hang out with my boys who still go to FSU. Even though the drive would be truly terrible to do alone again, I was still considering it (my friends are pretty fun). Although this one is still a possibility, the chances are dwindling...

Now, I don't have any plans at all. I originally had MLK day off but I lost a coin toss in my unit and now have to be on call for any cases that get called in that day. I'm one of about 9 different CPS investigators though, so it probably shouldn't be much work at all. Kinda sucks though because I thought this weekend was going to be something a little different from the usual thing. I guess there's always the Texas Independence Day weekend...

I Got a Rug

Yeah, so I am the proud new owner of a rug now. How about that? I never thought a purchase like this would be blog-worthy but I really feel like it's a big step into my "adulthood".

Since I moved in to my new apartment I have been slowly furnishing it with pieces from Craigslist, garage sales, salvation army, goodwill, and of course, from my friends and coworkers who all had extra stuff. Surprisingly, my living room actually looks pretty good (in my humble opinion), even with all the hand-me-down furniture. Now once I get my new art (*wink*) up on the wall I think the place will really be quite a little pad for all kinds of debauchery...err...fun times.

The addition of the awesomely soft and delicious looking Crate and Barrel 100% New Zealand wool rug now ties my room together and I now have a great place to fall asleep while watching Gabe and Shirin's DVD of the internet they got me recently (I've been watching that Daft Punk video and that crazy dance competition kid every day now). I really felt like I had to write about this because it's probably the biggest purchase for something to go in my house that I've ever made (that wasn't a computer). Kudos to me. Feel free to stop by and rub your clean feet all over it's wonderful fibers.

A Typical Weekend

Because all my readers have been asking what I do on a typical weekend (not really), I will go through these last 48 hours or so in detail to try and capture what I do with my time off in Austin, TX.

FRIDAY NIGHT:
Right after work on Friday I went with a couple of friends to a bar down the street from the CPS offices and we had a drink or two. Most of the conversation gravitated toward whether or not we planned on staying in Austin for more than a year or so. We always talk about things like this because virtually everyone I hang out with is not an indigenous Austinite (half the time we came from a few thousand miles away actually). I guess all of us moved here because we wanted something new and exciting but we tend to always talk about moving back to our respective homes for some reason. The jury is still out on this one, however, because it seemed like the consensus of the conversation was: "Who knows?"

After the bar we went to see I Am Legend with Will Smith (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for those of you who don't know him). I liked it. After that, I went home and went to sleep 'cause I've been sick for much of the last two weeks and didn't want to string myself out any more.

SATURDAY:
I woke up at 7:30am because my friggin' room gets uber-bright in the mornings due to the lack of quality blinds I have on my windows. I ate some breakfast, cleaned up my house, and watched some DVDs (I still don't have cable...although not for a lack of trying. I got the DirectTV people to come out to my house to install satellite TV and they told me that my balcony didn't face the right direction so they left. Oh well). After spending a few hours hanging out with myself, I went back to sleep (I'm sick remember).

SATURDAY NIGHT:
I woke up the second time around 4pm or so. I got showered and dressed and ventured out to go buy a new tire for my bike and a big canvas from Michaels craft store. The canvas is going to be the second piece of home-made paintings for my apartment (the first coming from my lovely sister-in-law Shirin). I think I'm going to paint it all black and just sort of throw white paint at it till it looks like something out of a high class art gallery. We'll see how it goes...

After all my shopping was over I cooked some dinner and then went to meet some friends downtown. I ended up going to a few different bars and meeting up with a few different friends. It wasn't a big night or anything but I still had a good time seeing some people I hadn't seen since before Christmas. I went home around 1am (if you had come this weekend Casey it would have been a longer night than that - I promise).

SUNDAY:
This day I spent working around the house. I sanded and stained a chest of drawers I got from my parent's house in Florida, I painted my big canvas black, I washed all my dishes (in the sink mind you!), and I spent some time outside just hanging out in my apartment complex. This last bit doesn't seem all that fun (and it wasn't for much of the time) but I ended up meeting two of my neighbors who seemed really cool. One of them had kids and when I told her who I worked for she immediately started explaining that the scratch little Mckenzie (her daughter) had on her face was because of their dog (I guess I have to start expecting this reaction from parents sometimes). Overall, it was a pretty cool day though and I now know a few more people in Austin (ya know, in case I need to be taken to the hospital after one of my "home renovations" goes awry or something).

And that's pretty much it. A nice, relaxing weekend. Time to start work again I guess...

New Year, New Blog

Well, nothing has changed about the blog except that I'm going to write in it regularly (you have my word as a gentleman).

To bring in the New Year I hung up the best X-mas present I got this holiday. My brother Casey and his wife Janice made this hanging sign post that tells you exactly how far away from Austin, TX all the big cities in my life are. London, Tallahassee, St. Pete, Athens, and Lakeland are represented. Here's what it looks like:

Here is a closer look at three of the signs:
(I almost made it 5000 miles from London)

There you have it. My apartment feels a little more like home now. :)