Sheep Guarding Llama

Day Five on Topsail Island. Neither Dominica or I are really sick today. Dominica still has a bit of her hives left but she isn’t so bad. This morning we headed out to Wilmington to tour the USS North Carolina. It is the 1941 battleship that saw itself engaged in every battle of the Pacific Theatre in World War II. The tour was really interesting. I have toured destroyers, missile cruisers and subs before but I think that this was my first time on a full scale battleship.

After touring the ship today, we went out to Gilligan’s just off the island and did some karaoke. No one sang but me but at least I had fun:) We didn’t stay real late but I managed to sing about five songs. I did one that I did for the first time a week ago at the Elk’s Club of Broadneck and I did a few new ones that I have never tried before.

Day four on Topsail Island. Dominica is feeling much better today. She still has hives but the swelling has gone down and she thinks that she will be able to do things today. We going to go to Audio Labs in Wilmington, NC to check out what they have.

Last night we watched Shallow Hal. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought that it would be. It was less funny and more cute than I expected. It wasn’t bad. Nothing outrageously exciting, but entertaining. Francesca loves it. She said that it is one of her all time favorite movies.

Tonight, Min and I went out to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It was recommended to us by the owners of the Audio Lab in Wilmington. They said that it was really funny and they were right. We laughed so hard right there in the theatre and for an hour afterwards. We thought that it was exceptionally funny because the movie applied so much to us. It is a great family movie too!

Dominica and I took her cousin Rob to the Audio Lab in Wilmington, NC. He got a chance to listen to B+Ws, Innersound and Pinnacle speakers as well as some Conrad-Johnson and Rotel amps and equipment. He was very impressed. We were hoping that we would manage to spark his interest. Obviously we did. He left the Audio Lab with a pair of B+W 602 S3’s and stands. When he gets back to Phoenix he is going to be relistening to his entire CD collection. He is currently using a Yamaha receiver which he will be keeping for now and a mix of Bose and Infinity speakers.

On the way home from the Audio Lab, I got the pangs of the disentary that has been going around. We are pretty sure that we are getting it from the water. I spent the rest of the day being incredibly sick.

Day three on Topsail Island. This is really a long vacation for Dominica. I really wish that we had something better than a bad dial-up connection. It would be so much nicer here if there was someway to get online quickly. When I connect and try to look at Sheep Guarding Llama, it takes forever to load. I need to reduce the size of the site, I guess. I am spending some of my time down here working on a guide teaching HTML and XHTML. We are using a walkie talkie (a Motorola Walkabout) to communicate between the people at the beach and the people in the cottage. It is pretty funny. It is handy though. Otherwise once people head out to the beach, they are unreachable.

Last night, contrary to Loopy’s suggestions, we watched The Time Machine. It wasn’t as bad as Loopy had said but it wasn’t very good. The story really didn’t go anywhere and all of the “technical” stuff that they said didn’t make any sense. The effects weren’t too bad but they sure don’t make a movie. And it seemed really short. There was very little to the movie in general. It was more like an ABC Sunday Night special than it was a full blown Hollywood movie.

I am getting exhausted from lack of movement. I need to get out and do something. I have become too sedentary. I hope to make it out and do some bicycling today.

I forgot to mention that the other night I made it out with John, Rob and Trish to go so some karaoke at the Broadneck Elk’s Club in Annapolis. We were there for a long time on Friday night while we were waiting for Dominica to make it down from New York. She ended up taking a wrong turn and heading out to DC on i95 instead of coming straight down to Annapolis on i97. So we got an extra hour and managed to stay for the entire time that they were doing karaoke. Nate would have loved it. It was a small crowd but we had a really good time. I sang songs like Texas Tattoo (Gibson Miller Band), Tequila Talkin’ (Lonestar), Strong Enough (Blackhawk), Yes (Chad Brock) and I Wanna Talk About Me (Toby Keith.) Then the guy doing the karaoke asked me to also sing two duets with him (one of them was It Wasn’t Me by Shaggy and I can’t remember what the other one was) and he asked me to sing If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body by the Bellamy Brothers. I also sang Pirate at 40 with Rob and John. John and I never heard the song before. It was John’s first time ever doing karaoke. I also did a quintet of some song that I don’t remember. It was a lot of fun.

I am working on school work today. I have a ton of back work that needs to be done.

Day two of vacationing in North Carolina. This is my first real vacation in as long as I can remember. I can’t remember being away during the week for the longest time. It seems pretty weird.

Dominica’s brother’s band has finally got an EP done in the studio and will have the finished CDs available in the near future. They managed to get five songs done in the studio. We got to hear a CD-ROM copy that they have now. They are really good. We were really impressed.

We have been having heavy rain on and off. Everyone keeps heading out for the beach and then getting driven right back again.

Dominica’s hives are dramatically worse today. She is in really bad shape. We managed to get a hold of her doctor and the pharmacist today and she is on steroids now trying to control the situation. She is feeling really bad and is unable to do anything during her vacation.

After six months of not having his cell phone work, Eric finally got a new cell today. He is very excited. He now has voice mail as well.

Hopefully Min will be feeling better soon so that we can get out of the cottage and go do something. I want to get out to Wilmington and check out the hifi store there.

Well, we made it to Topsail Island ok. It takes about six hours to get down here from Annapolis. We took off around noon and stopped for dinner so it took us a little while to make it down. It is much cooler here than it is in Maryland – the ocean wind is really helping.

Nate and Bob are working on their new web site which will be at www.boyntonmusic.com. Hopefully it will be up early next week.

Dominica has developed an allergic reaction to her antibiotic and has developed a rash and has to take some more medication to treat it. She will probably end up sleeping a good deal of the time that we are down here because of the medicine.

Racing Beat in Annaheim, Cailfornia has finally released the exhaust kit and spring kits for the Protege5. The exhaust kit is expected to add approximately 4.5hp of power and give the car a lower growl. The spring lower the car by .75″. It would be nice to be able to get a little bit more out of the car. The exhaust kit would give the PR5 the same hp rating as the 1988 RX-7. I am hoping to be able to find a computer upgrade kit for the PR5. That is where the biggest difference in performance comes in.

I still haven’t been able to get onto the other computer to get the update that is missing the other day. It will be at very least a week until that update will be able to go up since I am not anywhere near that computer anymore.

I found a B+W dealer in the area in Wilmington, NC – not far from here. I think that Dominica and I will head there tomorrow morning to see what they have. This will be Min’s second trip ever to a hi-fi shop.

Loopy hopped in the Loopymobile and headed off to North Bay yesterday to go visit Miranda. He was supposed to be finished working with Cornell University this week so I expect that he does not have to be back on Monday (tomorrow.) While being out of work is always stressful, I am sure that he will appreciate his upcoming vacation. He has been working at Cornell for a long time now. This is one of his longest runs he has had at work for some time. Actually, off the top of my head, I think that this might be his second longest contract job ever.