Jillian and I have been married for almost two years now, and we have had lots of adventures over the past two years, and from almost all of those adventures we have lots of pictures. The other day we sat down at the computer and looked through all the pictures from the past two years and picked out 13 really good ones from all of the various adventures, and we are having them printed for us to put on our walls. I was surprised at what a good price you can order prints for. We uploaded our pictures to Walmart.com and ordered ten 5×7s and three 8×10s for around $12 total. We are buying frames and we plan to have a wall containing all of our adventure pictures. I’ll post the ones that we chose on the blog here this evening or sometime.

I have always thought that the downside of digital photos is that its a little bit of a hassle to get hard copies of the pictures. However I am now convinced that digital is all good. If all of our pictures had been taken on old style cameras then we would have spent hundreds of dollars by now having the film developed, and we would have had to pay at least as much to have them blown up to 5×7s and 8×10s. Blow ups of digital pictures come out better because the resolution is so high when the picture is taken, and you don’t have to worry about the picture being damaged.

My dream is that down the road we have hundreds of pictures on the walls of our house from all over the world. Every picture can be a reminder of a trip or experience that we had, and can tell a story. We have been so blessed to have so many such experiences in the two short years that we have been married, and we hope for many more like them.

On the side, we have at least four panoramic photos that we would like developed. I have been told that pixeloutpost is the only way to go to print pans, but it is still pretty expensive there. If anyone has any advice for printing panoramic photos it would be greatly appreciated.

We had another habitat for humanity Saturday morning with the guys from church and enjoyed it very much. We had six people and we were able to work on several different projects. We started out doing sheet rock indoors, but there were a lot of Elon volunteers there and it was too crowded so we went outside and worked on the fascia of the house and a deck and wheel chair ramp. Here are some pics:

We were up early for some Biscuitville and I got to see the sun rise. I thought these pictures turned out really nice.

On the left is Kevin and our boss putting up the fascia and on the right is John and Karissa and James.

Kevin measuring and marking boards for the deck,

Karissa goofing off with the boards,

me cutting the boards,

and Tom assuming a management position over the board cutting process.

We were done by lunchtime and headed over the Martino’s for a bite, and then out to Mill Creek for some football with a bunch of others. Overall a Saturday very well spent.

It has been one whole year since my first post to thebradlands, December 15th, 2005. I would like to thank my mom and dad, for bringing me into this world. Also my producer/ providor/ spellchecker/ factchecker Warren Myers. Of course I’d like to thank Jillian who has stuck with me through thick and thin and has helped me with my Spanish. And lastly all my fans who have made it fun for me to write knowing that you care enough to check by and read. Blogging has been a great way to vent my excitement in lots of different areas. Hopefully reading has energized you, and thebradlands has been an instrument to get you excited about life.

We finished up around lunch time today with Habitat for Humanity, and had a great day and got a lot done. This time instead of building we were demolishing. Habitat has a program where they pull old houses appart and resell all of the appliances and lumber and siding. Basically a thrift store version of Lowes. So EMC donated our time to work for Habitat to pull a house appart to sell, and the money they make from the stuff we pulled appart goes into building houses for needy people. Complicated but it all works out in the end.

We had about 20 people and at first we were cleaning up the remains of the house, and then we were cutting lumber to be taken to the store to be resold. The cutting was very awkward at first with two of us and then three of us doing three or four jobs. We then pulled in 4 or 5 more people and got a process together that knocked out a huge ammount of wood in a short ammount of time. Teamwork and synergy and all that good stuff.

So after we finished up I went out for lunch and beers with some of the guys from RTP including my boss, and now I am cleaning up and I am going to run in to work to check my email and see if there is anything desperate that needs to get done. Oh yeah and one more thing, its mid to high 70s today, perfectly clear and sunny, all the leaves are golden and red, and it is one of the most glorious days to be outside. Believe me I wont be in the office for long this afternoon. I need to be outside enjoying the weather!

Saturday Kevin, Steven, Karissa and I went out to Burlington to work on a habitat house for 4 or 5 hours. Kevin has organized stuff like this in the past, and we have done shingling and painting, but this time we got to do the fun stuff, which is framing. When we got there they had already framed two of the outer walls the day before and all we had to do was nail down the plywood and then set the walls up. We then constructed the two other outside walls, nailed on the plywood and put them up, and we constructed and put up four or five of the inside walls as well. It was a lot of fun swinging a framing hammer (no nail guns, too bad) and driving 16 penny nails. The guys who were running the show were great to work for and with, and a little after lunch we were finished with the job. I would be hard pressed to find a better way to spend a Saturday morning.

The cool thing is that EMC has organized a habitat for humanity work day as well, for this Thursday. Basically EMC donated my time to HFH so that I can work for them without using up a vacation day here. About 20 of us from EMC will be working on a house, and if its like last year then it will be an all day thing.  Hopefully we’ll be able to get a lot accomplished.

So Justin and Leah Falciola are down for the long weekend to hang out. Upon hearing the news that they were comming Jamie Biondo told them one must see is a burrito sold only at Banditos Mexican Restaurant in Chapel Hill or Durham. The burrito is called El Gigante and it weighs four pounds. Four pounds of beans, rice, onions, green peppers, salsa, guacamole, and whatever other slop they decide to throw in. The challenge is that if one person can eat the whole burrito then they get a free t-shirt and their picture on the wall, and they get bragging rights forever.

Strangly even though Justin and Leah were the ones visiting, it was Mike and Jamie who decided to give El Gigante a try. They each ordered one of the huge burritos, costing around 15 dollars each, and after strategizing a game plan and going through the psychological preparation necessary for such an endeavor, they dug in.

Mike was sprinting, and we all soon became convinced that he could do it. Although he had to take a few brakes to walk around a little and let the food settle, he amazingly finished the entire thing in 16 minutes, just one minute shy of the all time restaurant record set in 1947 (ok I dont actually know when the record was set).

Jamie was a different story however. He had the added challenge that he didn’t like onions, peppers, or beans. Where Mike saw this as wonderful, having so much food in front of him, for Jamie this was more like fear factor. after 10 minutes he was about at the halfway mark, but the psychology of it was killing him. He kept battling, getting some tips from the recently finished Mike, and managed to get down to about the last pound, but he was not looking like he was in too good shape. He was sweating, his pace slowed, and he was seriously looking like he wasn’t going to be able to hold it down. However he dug down, found a small empty pocket in which to put just a little more rice and beans, and cleaned his plate.

Now we would like to say this was the end of the story. Both guys got T-shirts and they got their picture taken together. After we all paid however, Jamie hobbled out of the restaurant bent over like a grandma, and Mike wasn’t looking so hot anymore. Upon their leaving the restaurant, they both seemed to suddenly remember an appointment they had made, and the next we knew they were both out in the bushes behind the building reviewing the contents of those wonderful burritos.

So was it worth it? Heck yeah it was worth it. For a T-shirt and the fame and the picture on the wall it was totally worth it. Would they do it again? Lets just say they probably wont be looking forward to Leah and Justin’s next visit with quite the same vim and vigor.

Mike Falciola is on the rugby club team at UNC and we went and saw their game today. It was the first time I have seen Rugby played and it took a little bit to figure out what was going on but it looked pretty fun. A full contact version of soccer that is just one tackle after another. Mike made some great runs and we enjoyed a beautiful day out in the sun. Here are some pictures:

Mike is second from the right

This is a scrum, and its sort of like a jump ball only you roll the ball and everyone gets in on it and guys grab each others butts. Great crack.

Jamie on a perch

The girls scoping out the guys from the scafolding.

Hey guys, my name is Brad and I am a pretty nice guy. I am a Christian, a husband, an American, a conservative, an EMC employee, a NC State alumni, a Red Sox fan, a backpacker, a runner, a soccer player, a snowboarder, a surfer, a second baseman, a climber, a geocacher, a tight rope walker, and lots of other things too.

My purpose in keeping this blog is to keep a record of the things throughout the year which have excited me, impressed me, impacted me, disgusted me, inspired me, encouraged me, or had an effect on me in some way. Perhaps by keeping track of these things I will have a store to look back on when I am in need of excitements, impressions, impactions, disgustion, inspiration, encouragement, or effection. If you are not Brad then you are welcome to check out what I have here and my hope is that you too will be excited, impressed, impacted, disgusted, inspired, encouraged, or effected. I also love dialog and debate. Please feel free to comment on anything and everything and I look forward to lively discusion.

Why the bradlands? The Badlands is a beautiful place in South Dakota. For pictures you can click here.

Surgeon Generals Warning: I never learned how to spell!