Our Health

I thought I would post an update as to how we are going health wise. You probably remember a few weeks ago, I hurt my back pretty badly. Since then, I have been to the Chiropractor 3 or so times and received treatment. Well, I am happy to say that I am feeling much, much better. I have very little discomfort and I am feeling my old strength coming back. I have more drive during the day and I am sleeping better. I am praising the Lord for his kindness towards me. During this weeks visit to the Dr he mentioned that I had maintained alignment in C1 (good thing) and that I was needing less adjustment in the other problem areas.

Jenee is getting better too, and is needing less and less adjustment. She is, however starting to feel some pressure with a full work schedule and then school and some homesickness. If you could remember her in your prayers it would be most appreciated.

Praise the Lord for all his provision and healing power.

Adobe Photoshop = Digital Love

Most of the images you see on this site from my camera have at one point or another been through Adobe's Photshop CS3 digital image editing software. Photoshop allows you to do just about anything imaginable to a digital picture. Whether you want to put your own head on someone else's body, design amazing graphics or spend hours pouring over a photo that you took, correcting color balance, contrast, hue, tint, sharpness, or remove a parking cone that's a distraction in fore ground of an otherwise well composed F-16 image or converting it to a striking black and white image.

You can even write and run macros which are self executing mini-programs for handling multiple files. For example, the "Heart of Florida Air Show" pictures were taken in whats called a RAW format, similar to a film negative. I used Photoshop to convert all 490 of them to jpg format, then I used a sharpen command, and then I resized all of them so that they would fit into a small file for the slide show. All I had to do was tell it what to do and an hour later it was all completed.

If you happen to use Photoshop and you don't know how to do something that I have mentioned, send me a message or email and I will do my best to help you out.

Air Show Goodness! (PICTURES ARE UP NOW)

Well, we are back in our apartment, after a long long day in the sun. The day started off early for me, I got up at 7 and headed off to work to tend to samples from 2 separate experiments. An hour later I was back at the apartment, and hour after that, we were at Gainesville Regional Airport for the "Heart of Florida Air Show".

After a brief and exciting ride on a tractor pulled wagon we were there! The organizers had a great assortment of modern fighter jets, old and current stunt planes, historical military and civilian planes. You can see the slide show below, but we spent a good hour walking around enjoying the atmosphere. I love it cause you can talk to anyone, ask questions to pilots and have a great time together.

Heart of Florida Airshow 2007

Our favorites? Well, I have to admit, the big ticket to me was to see a real deal in-the-flesh A-10 Warthog, and I have to admit, in the air A-10's are incredibly maneuverable and you can see how lethal they would potentially be to land targets in service. On the other hand the noise, violence, grace, maneuverability, speed, and violence of the F-18 was astounding. And then there was Jurgis Kairys' Sukhoi Su-31. One word - WOW. Jenee's favorite was Patty Wagstaff flying her Extra300S stunt plane. She threw that little thing all over the sky like nobodies business. It was a very spectacular show, she was flying 50ft off the deck, and then the next moment she was whizzing up into the sky spinning around and around, and then she would be back playing near the ground.

Our Impression? Personally I thought that it was a well organized fun day out. One thing I will confess to though, is that from now on I will listen to the gene in my wife that says things like "Shall we take chairs?", and "Let's take some more food and water!". I confess, I thought that chairs would be extra weight, and a pain. Wrong and wrong. We came home after six hours in the hot Florida sun, happy but rater sunburnt, well at least on Stevens was ...So, who's up for the Sea and Air Airshow in May down in Ft Lauderdale? (me me me me me me me!)

Why I Love My Cousin Eugene

Cause he makes me laugh when I needed it...


All you fans of Weird Al's "UHF" will enjoy these pictures...

Above: Weird Al as Indiana Jones, and Rambo.
Below: Wheel of Fish and Conan the Librarian.

Easter 2007

So how was everyone’s Easter long weekend? Well ours has been long and fun. On Wednesday and Thursday I had to attend our bi-annual Industrial Advisory Board Meeting where research from our department is scrutinized. It went very well, I had my undergrad presenting and also one of the grad students that I work closely with present. Overall, it was very successful. Jenee left on Wednesday for Texas, so after IAB I rented a car and drove to Jacksonville to catch a plane to Texas. Now we are very lucky to be flying on air miles, so don’t take this the wrong way, but I really don’t like American Airlines. For some reason this airline is unorganized to new heights. I don’t necessarily think it’s the staff, I think it is the underlying companies protocol that makes their service so bad. You don’t get a free snack on the plane, they want $3 for a bag of potato chips, they bumped our return flight with out telling us and they changed our seats so that we had to ask other passengers if they minded switching so we would be together. The only redeeming feature of the trip was one of the air hostesses cared enough to ask how I was and how my day was.

Easter 2007

Friday, Jenee mowed the lawns of her parent’s house and I picked up sticks and chew toys from the yard that the dogs have left. After our morning garden work, I dropped Jenee off at her Aunt Karen’s house to spend time with her cousin Majedah and her cute little boy, Zade. I hung around for a while and talked and even risked playing with Scarlet, Aunt Karen’s cat. Scarlet is sweet, but is known to be bipolar. I snapped a picture of her in midair pouncing on one of her toys. After an hour or so I split and headed off to Arlington Camera to put my name on the 4 month wait list for the Nikon 18-200 VR. (Warning: "Boring" camera discussion, feel free to skip) This will be a great lens and replaces two lenses (18-70, 70-300 VR) with one. I also got to play with the Nikon 80-400 and the Tokina 12-24 lenses. I loved the Tokina, and for 50% of the purchase price of the Nikon equivalent, I think I have found the right lens for my landscape photography. As for the tele-Nikon, it was nice but I would rather a different approach for my telephoto wants.

After the camera store I went to Fry’s (a boys paradise electronics warehouse) to buy some more memory for Jenee’s laptop. It now has 1.25 GB of RAM and runs much better. I also went over to Uncle Tony’s to pay a visit. Jon and Ash are now working for UT. They have sorted out the office with new furniture and new computers. It looks great and there is a picture of their office in the slideshow I posted. Jon and I joked around with SuperSonic (UT’s new nickname) and got up to our usual tom-foolery. Before I left to pick up Jenee, Ash said something really bizarre… The weather bureau was forecasting snow flurries for Saturday. SNOW FLURRIES IN APRIL.

Well Saturday morning we woke up to snow flurries, just like weather bureau said. Now if you don’t believe me check out the slideshow. And what’s more, the snow flakes were big. It snowed for a good 5-6 hours at one point and on and off for the rest of the day, but because the ground was warm the snow didn’t stick around long. While I was taking the pictures out the back of the Masri farm, something else caught my attention. Sure enough, the hummingbirds were out feeding from Momma’s feeder. I snapped a few pictures of them, they are such amazing little birds. I snapped the pictures from 1/250^th to 1/500^th of a second and the wings were still moving too fast for me to capture them. All that means is those little wings flap really, really fast.

Later that day Jenee and I went to the most elaborate Easter party that I have ever seen. Organized by Lisa and Carl Cravens, we arrived to be greeted by a lawn mower train driven by Carl’s grandfather. He wouldn’t take no for an answer so we rode in the train and made a grand entrance in front of all the parents. Upon arrival, Lisa gave me camera duty, Jenee was given “supervise the girls” duty and Courtney was given “Easter Bunny” duty. Yup, Courtney was the Easter Bunny. Lisa had a huge egg hunt organized, two blow-up castles, a petting farm and enough sugar and juice to give the average kid diabetes. Well at least Mary Nelle who was so desperate for sugar, we caught her eating the freckles off the cake plates and sucking the icing off of the mini cup cakes. (Sound familiar Heather and Helen? What are you eating Nate? Noffink…)

We went to Babes for dinner and ate our selves stupid. Babes has only 5 options on the menu: Catfish, Baked Chicken, Chicken Friend Steak, Chicken Fingers and Pot Roast. Pick one and you get a good serving of bean sprouts, corn and mashed potatoes to boot. It’s a hearty meal but its so, so good.

Sunday we had church, which was fantastic as always, We just love Mansfield Bible Church. Greg has a wonderful gift for sharing the Word. I was amazed at how many people came up to me and asked me how I was and how my back was, not just out of courtesy, but out of genuine interest. I was really touched by the love displayed toward me. After church we came home and started to get ready for a big family Easter doo. Well, we had enough eggs for 5 kids, but only one came, Landon, Matt and Melissa’s boy. Poor Landon had to have some help carrying all the eggs. And mean Aunt Jenee put eggs next to the fence where the big bad dogs were excitedly waiting so he was a little scared. Luckily Matt and I were there to save him from the puppies and the eggs were safely collected. Linda put on an amazing dinner for all of us, and we settled in and sat around talking, playing card games and the boys watched Future Weapons. Future Weapons is well worth watching. Overall it was a really nice evening and we all had a great time.

Monday Jen and I ran more errands and stuff. If you asked Jen what the best thing about Monday was she would probably say: getting new thongs/flip flops and a shirt from the Nordstrom Rack outlet store. They have all sorts of great bargains there. I think I am going to save some money up and get some nice work clothes and maybe a watch. All of there stuff is “last season” which doesn’t really matter much because lets face it, men’s formal fashion doesn’t really change all that much. Highlight number two would have been that she got to drive a convertible 1988 Mercedes 560SL. Jenee was in heaven. She even coaxed me into the car and we drove home in 12°C at 105 km/h. Yeah, cold. Monday night we just chilled at home with Linda and Joe and watched “Dancing with the Stars” and “24”. I have to admit, I am becoming a bit of a fan of “Dancing” and 24 even got me interested for a little while.

Tuesday was a rush, we got up early to go to the bank, then Jenee and Linda got their nails done while I went back to the house and finished off the washing (and watched more Future Weapons). Nothing much exciting here, except as I wrote this on the plane, I connected to a wireless network approximately 30,000 ft up. Go figure? It wouldn’t actually let me load Google though.

Well, that’s about it, we are flying home as I write this, and looking forward to getting back to the apartment and seeing the kittens and restoring some kind of routine. I hope everyone had a great weekend and I’d love to hear from you. Email me!

Nate and Jenee

3 National Championships in 12 Months!

Well the Gators have done it again. Last night the Mens basketball team won their second consecutive national title. In January, the football / gridiron team won their first title in (I think) 11 years. Thats three titles in 12 months.

Excerpt and image taken from GatorZone

The University of Florida men’s basketball team capped another magical season Monday night, this time with an 84-75 victory over Ohio State at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta to claim the national title for the second-straight year.

With the victory, the Gators became the first team since 1991 and 1992 to repeat as champions (Duke).

Florida (35-5) won the final 10 games of the season, and now owns an 18-game win streak in postseason play (12-0 in the NCAA Tournament). Ohio State ended its season with a 35-4 record as the Gators snapped the Buckeye’s 22-game win streak.

Last year I was only "fascinated" with the sports activity of the university and enjoyed attending the basketball and baseball games. I have to say, this year I am a lot more interested in the teams and would claim to be a fan, though not a "superfan" like some Gators. These young men have such fantastic attitudes towards each other and their opponents and have won my respect. You should see how they play, their just amazing...


Nate

Congratulations Jacqui and Roy

My cousin Jacqui is engaged! To a very fine young man, Roy! Congratulations. Jenee and I are so happy that you have found your man. We wish you many happy years in a happy message. For those of you who haven't seen her, here is my toppy Aussie cousin and her man:


And here she is posing with my sister, Heather.


I tried to call you at your engagement party Jaq, but I couldn't get a hold of Heather's phone. Hope to talk to you soon!

Praise the Lord!

I really want to pass on my thank yous for all your prayers.

I took Thursday and Friday off work and lay flat on my back with ice on / ice off all day. The swelling went down and the pain subsided so that by Sunday I could comfortably more around.

This afternoon (Monday), Jenee took me to her Chiropractor, Dr. Draney. After examining and X-Raying me, he was able to pass on the excellent news that my spine is in excellent condition and my discs are all in great condition. He identified my problem to be attributed to severe misalignment around C1, C2 and C7 - T2.

The Dr adjusted me and I feel much much better already. Praise number 2 is that when we came to pay, Dr Draney revealed that he had made a special arrangement which was extremely generous gesture. Praise the Lord.

We are just rejoicing that God provided such a skilled man to help me, and also that my symptoms were not the result of any serious internal damage. So I want to thank you for remembering me in your prayers. Jenee and I really, really appreciate them.

In Christ,

Nate and Jenee

So what'd we do this weekend?

Well, I was out of action because of my back, so I couldn't really help out much with cleaning, shopping, getting Jenee's eyebrows waxed etc, so Jenee dropped me off at Brandon and Krista's to look after the animals while they (B&K, not the animals) were out of town. We figured that I may as well stay there while Jenee shopped and did some cleaning in the apartment so I'd be out of her way. Well the animals were so excited to see someone after 12 hours alone that I got plenty of cuddles from the cats, and Hannah, the Chinchilla, even let me pick her up for a moment.

Sunday Jenee and I went to visit a new church since we haven't had the chance to visit any others in Gainesville. I think it was their Easter Special Palm Sunday Service cause it was certainly a little unusual. It followed a conventional format, however there was no sermon? We were a little bedazzled by this. Giving them the benefit of the doubt we would like to make a second visit to them.

On Sunday afternoon I spent some time taking pictures of the Lillies that I bought for Jenee. Check out the slide show below. In the evening we went with B&K to see Meet the Robinsons in 3D. Though it wasn't Pixar great, it was certainly entertaining and the 3D was fantastic.



Weekend of April 1

New Google TiSP Internet!

Yesterday (Sunday) Google launched it's new internet service provider TiSP. This exciting new provider is free, easy to install and ultra fast, based on optical fibers. Cool, except I wouldnt want to be one of the Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (Google calls them PHD's) at the end of the line.


Apparently, the US and Canada are online, and UK and Australia are soon to follow...