Piano Recital pics

These are pictures from my Spring Piano Recital at GAC. Emily & Erin (our 2 nieces) are two of my piano students that performed on Saturday. They played very well!
Luda & I played our "famous" Chopsticks Theme & Variations duet!

What are you working on now?

That's the question I get most frequently now that most people know that the St. Simons Community Church project is finished. The answer? A couple of smaller projects here in the Atlanta area, one of which is the "shell" for a North Face retail store in Buckhead.

Our contract is just for the exterior work, though we hope to be awarded the interior work as well. The store is in the Whole Foods shopping center in Buckhead, about a block from a huge development project where the old Buckhead bar scene used to be. We gutted an old restaurant and expanded the footprint of the building, and we are now working on the exterior "skin." Our work should be done within the next month, and the store is supposed to open sometime this summer.

Oh yeah...a reporter from the AJC called me last week to ask about the project, and he wrote up a little article that appeared in today's Metro section. Makes it sound like a lot bigger deal than it really is, but its pretty cool to see your name in the paper!

Thank the Lord for IN-Calling!

If Joy ever looks a little strange to you, it will probably be because her cell phone has become permanently attached to her ear or something. Check out this section of her phone bill this month...

Now, add up those numbers in the "USED" column. Yeah...2,640 minutes in one month. That's 44 hours! Let me say that again...44 hours! To her credit, almost 800 of these minutes came while she was down in Claxton helping get ready for Jane's wedding, but still...44 hours! Some figures you might be interested in...

Total calls (in and out): 875
Average calls per day: 28
Longest call: 29 minutes
Average call length: 3 minutes
Average time per day: 1 hour 25 minutes

She can wear that thing out can't she? Of course, the most important number in that graphic above is the $.00 All that for "free!" Like I said, thank the Lord for IN-Calling!

I'm gonna be rich!

Got this in my email this afternoon. I mean...how lucky can a guy get? Of all the email addresses in the world, they picked mine! And I don't really even like soccer.

SOUTH AFRICA WORLD CUP LOTTERY 2010

Lottery headquarters:
464, Braxton court,
Carlton, eastgate
Johannesburg.

Reference number:
ZAR/2324514325/2010

Batch number: SAA/2008/ZAR

Congratulations. The South African football association, safa is proud to inform you that you have just won Two Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars(US$2.500, 000.00).

This lottery is sponsored by South African football association, safa with fifty-six, 56 cooperate bodies.South Africa will be hosting the soccer world cup in the year 2010.this will be the first ever World Cup to be held in the continent of Africa. And we are celebrating this golden opportunity with this lottery.

We are also using this lottery to create awareness towards the hosting of the world cup in 2010 in South Africa.Don’t be surprise that you are one of our winners. The aims of this lottery are to surprise our winners.

However no previous notification is given before your email address was picked for this lottery. Generally email address are picked, the draws are processed by the computer through a special program that is special designed for this lottery, the program is known as Random Access Program (RAP)

This software picks email addresses from the internet and through a random process, picks the winners through their email address.

CLAIMING OF PRIZE

To claim your cash prize please contact the lottery manager MR. MIKE SPHIWE immediately with the following information:

Contact: MR. MIKE SPHIWE
Email: safa.claimsmanager@yahoo.com.hk

For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize released to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program. Please be warned.

Congratulations!!!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Joy Charlotte
Promotions manager
World cup 2010
South Africa

Now don't you all come beggin' for any of my money!

Who's on First

I was mildly surprised, recently, to find out that some of my family had never heard of or seen the classic Abbot and Costello sketch, "Who's on First?" So, continuing this week's baseball theme, here ya go...

Always good for a laugh!

Monday Night at the Ted

5:15 PM on Monday, the cell phone rings...

Los: Sullivan...what's up? Wanna go to the Braves game tonight?

Me: Yeah...let me check with the boss and see if its OK.

Five minutes later, after a quick call home...

Me: Los...we're on. I'll pick you up in twenty minutes.

Los: Sweet.

7:15 PM on Monday night, 21 rows back of home plate at Turner Field. Braves vs. Nationals. Tim Hudson on the mound. You probably saw us on TV and didn't even know it. Braves win 7-2.

All-in-all, a great night with a great friend. Thanks, brother!

Julianna's recap of Jane's wedding

This is why I love my sister Julianna. She tells it like it is, and she is a great story teller. This is her recap of Jane's wedding that she shared with a friend.

"How was the last Usry wedding? Let's just say, we saved the drama for last. :) Hundreds of flowers froze to death the day before the wedding (which meant buy more and arrange them); it rained 40 minutes just before the wedding (which meant, get sides for the tent b/c the wedding was outside...but it did stop raining and we didn't end up needing the sides); jane left happy as a lark to go to the Dominican Republic but we found out in the early morning hours on Wednesday (Tuesday night) that she had gotten extremely dehydrated from a stomach infection (lots of vomiting) and was admitted into a hospital.... should I go on? :) Hunter's dad flew down yesterday, and she should be let out of the hospital sometime today. It was a blast! :) Other than stuff like this (which I think makes for great stories) everything went wonderfully; it was a beautiful wedding! "

By the way, Happy Birthday, Julianna! Love you.

Few more pics...

Jane's bridesmaid's luncheon at Mrs. Pam's house

Mama & my sisters
Our 2 beautiful aunts!

Jane is Married!

Jane's wedding turned out to be beautiful! It was a very busy week & weekend, but we all survived. We have survived 4 weddings in 3 years!

The Conrad's

Here are some pictures that were taken on Saturday before the wedding.

Jane was a beautiful bride!

Where's My Watch?

You may remember back in March when I wrote about the Garmin 405 GPS watch that I wanted. Well, my family was generous enough to give me money for my birthday to buy the watch with. Unfortunately, Garmin keeps pushing the release date out so still no watch. Grrrrrrrrr!

Initially it was supposed to be released "1st quarter 2008." That got bumped back to "2nd quarter 2008" in the middle of March. REI says that due to "delivery delays" they expect delivery in early May. Amazon.com doesn't show it shipping until June 8! I'll hold out hope that "Peg" from the Garmin blogs was right when she wrote that it would be in stores right after the Boston Marathon on April 21. She at least gave us some new shots of the watch's various training screens.

Pretty sweet. Maybe I'll get it in time for the Peachtree!

Seriously...People want one of these two running the country?

Hillary, first...

Then, Obama...

I really think that they believe that we are just that stupid.

Charting the Course

Here is one of those interesting stories that happens behind the scenes that most people don't know (and probably don't really care) about...

A 10-K (kilometer) road race is approximately 6.2 miles. But how do they measure the course? In a car? With GPS? Nope...they do it the old fashioned way. On a bike.

In order for a race's course to be certified by USA Track and Field the course must be measured by very specific standards, listed here. To make a long story short, in order to guarantee that every runner runs AT LEAST 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles, the shortest possible path from start to finish must be measured. From the USATF certification guidelines: "You might envision the shortest possible route as a string, stretched tightly along the course so that it comes within 30 cm (one foot) of all corners, straight through S-turns, and diagonally between corners when crossing a street. You should measure the course following the same route as that hypothetical string."

Why is this interesting, and who is the guy in the picture up there? Well...as those of you here in Atlanta probably know, the drought here in Georgia has forced the Peachtree Road Race to alter its course this year. So that means the course had to be re-certified. Jack Grosko, a long time Peachtree Road Race volunteer was out early Sunday morning, riding an old 10-speed bike down Peachtree Street, certifying the new course. You can read all about it here.

If you want to see the USATF certification for the "old" Peachtree course, you can click the "map" link here. Fancy, huh?

By the way, this is the t-shirt design I voted for this year. Of course, in 11 years of the Peachtree Road Race I don't think I've ever picked a winner.

Joy and I will be out with 54,998 of our closest friends running the Peachtree on July 4th. Who else is running?

Another Sign Spring is Here

I've started getting my golf game back together. In fact, I've been watching a few training videos to help. I'm pretty sure that THIS one will be the most useful!