Rock and Ice is up!

My project here at Big Stone is finally complete. This site has it all: Member login area, forum, user comment posts, user test reviews (with awesome star ratings), etc.

I'm just happy this is finally live (and so is everyone else here in the office): www.rockandice.com

The warm weather must do something to web site work because I just got in two more freelance jobs over the past two weeks (personal networking is the key people!), so keep a lookout for additional posts when those go live.

One of them is entirely flash based as well!

D'Oh

Obviously there's no way that I would've known about this if Christi didn't watch almost every pageant that's on TV.

There's nothing like training for an entire year for the biggest competition of your life, and then you bite it walking down the runway. Sure it's not easy to walk down the runway in heels and an evening gown (I'm guessing), but you would think she would've practiced that a million times.

The best (and worst) part about the story is that after the judges somehow allowed her to get in the top 5, her on stage question that she picked was "If you could relive any moment in your life, what would it be and why?"

SHE DIDN'T SAY IT WAS WHEN SHE FELL. A perfect opportunity to redeem herself, but no, she didn't think of saying that. That could've shown some humility and locked in a great humor response with the judges. Instead, she said something else, and watched someone else win Miss Universe.

Thank you Rachel Smith. You've represented the US in the lowest form possible on a worldwide stage.

Steve Pederson is Stupid

Sure, this isn't news to any Nebraska (or Pittsburgh) fan, but the man is seriously a moron. After seeing Callahan in action and looking back on where Solich was heading us, I actually thought he made his *one and only smart decision in the 4+ years that he's been at Nebraska.

The new shocker that's going to have the fence-sitters hating Steve is that he thinks he's good enough to try and alter college football. How so? Well, he want to extend eligibility to 5 years.

Tons of players can't wait until their junior year is up so they can enter the draft. This is just ridiculous because if this goes through, we're going to have to watch people Courtney Grixby get beat down the field by taller receivers for one more year.

The only justification I can think that ol' Stevy P. has is that he might be the only guy in the world who still thinks LP deserves another shot. Maybe he's trying to bring him back for his one more year.



If this does actually get passed, we're going to have to think of a new name instead of 5^th year senior. And no, we're not going to call them "super seniors." Why? Because that sounds horrible and that's what you call those old younger baseball players who come back and try to compete in one more year of legion ball, but are just horrible.

--

*You can't say that getting rid of Collier was another one of his good ideas. It was a good idea, but Collier more or less left on his own terms to go dominate Bulldog athletics.

Coming Back (In September)

My grandma is awesome. After looking at Christi's alternating off-weekends, we found out that she has the weekend of September 15^th off. After knowing this great news, I got in contact with my mom to see if there was anyone she knew that would have a few extra tickets laying around for the USC game. Tickets that wouldn't cost us our monthly rent out here.

She said to call up Gma, so that's where I went. When I did, she said she had some extra ones on the 40 yard line on the west side. So with that, obviously, grandma is awesome. It will be fun to plan another trip to come back home and it will be really great to see everyone again.

I've been looking forward to the 15^th ever since they announced that the Trojans would fly into Lincoln. The whole city of Lincoln gets ridiculous on game days, and there's no better place to be.

I remember growing up and remembering how crazy it was when big name teams came into town. I remember how pumped everyone was in '91 when the Huskies came, and I'll never forget what a down year it was for trick-or-treating in '98 when Texas played on Halloween.

The 15^th will be unbelievable. Lincoln might be the craziest it's ever been in the history of the city, and thanks to Gma, The Wife™ and I will be there to watch it happen.

The Power of XM

Living in the mountains has it's ups and downs. An up being staring at Mount Sopris every day when I drive to work.

One of the major downs out here is there is about 5 radio stations that you can kind of understand what people are saying/singing. There's probably only two that come in nice and clear, but if you drive 5 miles in any direction, you might be listening to the constant sound of static for the next portion of your drive.

Since Christi and I have gone through our entire CD collections out here, we figured it was time for a change. It was also time for me to install my Christmas gift: XM radio.

After I put mine in, we got one for The Wife™ and in the short few days that we've had it, it is already worth the investment. I was able to listen to a few of the Braves games that weren't televised by TBS. It displays the score on your radio, the inning, how many outs, and even updates the screen 3 seconds after something has changed.

I'm hoping they add another feature telling me what the likelihood of Andruw Jones striking out 5 times in 5 at bats is. They were all swinging too.

Either way, XM is awesome, and it's nice to have something other than my CDs and NPR to listen to on the drive to/from work.

Shot Down

After begging Andy week after week for the unveiling of the new logo for his bar, I got tired of waiting and thought of one myself. Before we get into it, how cool is it that I know someone who's opening a bar? Free drinks anyone? Andy maybe?

Anyways, AO told me one day that the bar was going to be called "The Third Distillery." With that, I had a vision. Yep, it's shown below:



So when I get all pumped to show AO this, he said that he and the other owner already changed the bar to a new name, so the logo's out.

Not to be shot down too far in life, we thought it might work well for our ever so distant web/marketing company that we'll actually start one of these days. So that means for all of you reading: patent pending, copyrighted material, trademarked, etc.

I also thought it was strange today that the last two times we've made a full orbit around the sun, I've been in Colorado. Strange.

Last Full Day

On our last full day down under, we took it easy once again by hanging out in the Darling Harbour by our hotel. We started our day by going to the Sydney Aquarium and then relaxing by seeing an IMAX movie on the world's largest screen. We picked up some more fish and chips, took some more pictures, and then back to the hotel to rest up before our last night out.



We took a cab back up to the Circular Quay and checked out The Rocks, the city of Sydney's birthplace. We took a look at the fashion show going on, and then went to go grab a drink before the conclusion of our trip. We checked out the Minus 5 bar, and if we would've known you needed to book a tour, we would have. The entire bar is chilled to -5° C. Very cool. Ha, no pun intended. Ok ... So instead, we headed downstairs to the Russian vodka lounge, Lenin. We had an amazing Moscow Mule and Grasshopper, and then were off for our dinner cruise.

The conclusion of our honeymoon was a 3 hour dinner cruise through the Sydney Harbour. Our staff was just so-so, but the view was amazing at night. It was a great way to soak in the last images before we returned back to Colorado.

Sydney

With our full first day in Sydney, we decided to take the advice of El, a coworker of mine in Colorado. She used to live in Sydney and said that we must take the Manly ferry up to Manly, a small city about 30 minutes to the NE. We're glad that she told us that because it was a very scenic ride to and from Manly.



There were a bunch of little shops where we picked up some souvenirs and picked up some amazing lunch. On our way back we gazed back at the Syndey Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. When our ferry docked, we got off and gazed at the Opera House and then decided to take a tour. Cameras are not allowed inside, so to see the beauty of the inside, you have to actually go there and check it out. As we made our way to the end of the tour where the main concert hall was, we were more than lucky. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra was practicing and allowed our tour to come in (very rare). With this, we were able to fully appreciate all of the sounds, and hear one of the best orchestras in the region practicing.

The Reef

The day after the Daintree, The Wife™ and I took a day relaxing at the hotel. We got a massage together, grabbed some much needed fish and chips, and then worked on our my much needed tan. It was a good day to take a break as we had a water date scheduled for our last full day in Palm Cove.

After seeing the rain forest, the only other main thing to do up in Queensland is to visit the Great Barrier Reef. We made a last minute decision to sign up for a guided snorkeling tour with a marine biologist, and we couldn't have been more happy with that decision.

It took about 90 minutes to reach the edge of the reef traveling on a huge catamaran carrying 500+ people. Right as we got there, we threw on our lycra suits (to protect against jellyfish) and dove right into the reef to check out the fish and the coral.

To back up for a second, when we were on the plane flying to Australia, I told Christi I wanted to see two things. 1) A croc in the wild. 2) A shark in the wild.

To keep the suspense to a minimum, I saw both of my target goals. About 15 minutes into our guided tour, I got a little ahead of the other 3 people, and I spotted a white tip reef shark. I swam with it for about 30 seconds, and then tried to catch back up, but obviously could not. Christi did not get to see it, so I became determined for the rest of the tour to try to spot another one.

Our tour guide popped up at the end of our tour and said we need to start swimming back to the boat. Just as we started, we spotted another shark. I gray reef whaler this time. I was happy that we were both able to spot and swim with some sharks out in the big blue sea. It was quite the experience. Hopefully one of the pictures I took with my underwater camera captured at least one of the sharks on our tour. We'll know when we get them developed a little later. As for my pictures, it was tough to get a good shot of the reef from our boat. You really needed to go up in the helicopters to get a good view of all of the colors at once. Here's the best I did:

The Daintree

For our full first day we took a full, and by full I mean 12-13 hour, tour up to the north to go explore the Daintree rain forest. After our morning tea and crackers, we took an hour boat ride down the Daintree River.



At first it was very exciting to hear about how the wildlife and the ecosystem worked together. It was cool to see some birds and other wildlife. A close up encounter with a tree snake heightened the experience, but you could tell that people were beginning to get anxious. We all wanted to see a croc.

Thirty minutes or so passed, and our boat driver threw the boat in reverse as he spotted on through the trees.



There it was. A croc in the wild. At this point, some people might be thinking, "Where in that picture?" If you look just a little above and to the left of where the tree makes a "V" into the water.

So, this was cool and all, but everyone wanted to see a croc. They didn't want to see a 2 year old "come back in 5 years and I'll be huge" baby croc.

Our tour is about to end and all of the sudden we see him. A fully grown male croc just sunbathing right in front of us.



Hopefully you can see this one a little better. He's the only thing in the picture trying to hide under that red leaf.

After that was done, we were off to our ironic lunch (will explain later) as we rest up to hike through the rain forest and get ready to see something that is no where else on earth.

While our meal was being prepared, we got a chance to go and feed some kangaroos and a baby wallaby named Ninja. Kangaroos are awesome animals up close and apparently have a strong hunger for sweet potatoes, as this is what we were allowed to feed them.



After our up close encounter with Australia's most recognized animal, it was finally time to eat. Our whole tour group was pretty hungry, and pretty relieved when we heard that we were getting steaks. They were thin, but very big, and they hit the spot. We didn't find out until later that their steaks don't come from cows. They come from kangaroos. So, as we were so gently petting and feeding them a few minutes earlier, we were probably just plumping them up for some tour group in a month or so.

Our next drive took us inside the Daintree rain forest. We spent over an hour in there and learned a ton about how stuff grows, what factors are eliminating part of the rain forest, etc. We got to see a little wildlife, but it was more than ok with the massive trees we were walking under.

We then had a nice stop on a river in the rain forest where we had some more tea and some of the best fruits that we've ever experienced. After that, our last stop took us to the place where "the rain forest meets the reef." It's called Cape Tribulation and it's the only spot in the world where two world heritages touch each other: Daintree rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef.

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!

The tires on our plane screech when they hit the pavement, and 13 hours removed from the USA, we were finally in Australia. The best part about arriving somewhere new is to smell the fresh air as you finally get outside.

The first stop for The Wife™ and I was in Palm Cove. It's in the Queensland area in the northeast portion of the country, and was by far our favorite part of the honeymoon. We had an extremely modern and amazing hotel, and upon arrival they upgraded our apartment suite to one having an extra guest bedroom. Yep, that's right, just what we needed, an extra bed on our honeymoon in case there was a scuffle between us.

Regardless, it opened up the space so that our apartment for the next 5 days was a little over 1500 square feet. It was massive and amazing (pictures will be up on the picture page very soon).

We had some very cool things planned for our stay as well.

Back to Colorado

On Sunday morning, The Wife™ and I opened up all of our gifts and cards out at gma's and then watched in amazement as dad somehow got all of the boxes into the Liberty. As we said our goodbye's, we were off for the 9 hour car ride through the most boring part of the country. No, not even the stretch from Steph's house to the Mizzou arena is worse.

Western Nebraska is bad. Really bad. But it doesn't even come close to how boring the drive in Eastern Colorado is. There's nothing out there. No life. Nothing. The only thing you can do to keep yourself from going insane is to try and dodge all of the tumbleweed as it passes over I-70. For the record, I won on the drive east, but the tumbleweed evened me up on the drive back west.

Ok, I know I said I would keep these short, and here I go rambling on. In a short recap, we got home, packed, got to sleep, got up, drove to Denver and made it into LAX around 9 at night after a short stop in Vegas. LAX is not a fun place if you're traveling to a foreign land. Well, it's really not a fun place to travel anywhere.

Our plane takes off at 11.50 p.m. on Monday, we never experience Tuesday, and land in the only country/continent Wednesday afternoon.

Wedding Day

I'm going to try to recap the last 2 weeks or so in a few posts. I'll try to keep the posts short because I could probably just go on forever with each post.

As I digress ... 04.21.07 was unbelievable. It's a day that will never exit our minds or hopefully the people who came. I couldn't have asked for a better group of best men and I surely couldn't ask for a better bride.

Christi and I did not get nervous once leading up to the ceremony, or any time afterwards. It was nice to be so relaxed and even more so to sit back, soak it all in and have a good time.

After the ceremony we took the greatest limo ride of our lives (thanks in part to Mr. Boulevard and Mr. Fat Tire). It was fun to just unwind and get ready for the reception.

The reception was everything that we hoped for. Good food, good friends and an excellent time for all. The usual mixing, mingling and dancing were in order throughout the night. Once the rental shoes gave my feet all the pain they could withstand, we were off to the Hilton for the first night as Mr. and Mrs. Helge.

We're back.

The Wife™ and I finally returned to our home country. The wedding was fabulous and Australia was more beautiful than my words could begin to describe.

With that, I'll start with posts about what we did, where we went, what we saw, etc. I'll try to get all of the pics up and online as well sometime this weekend.

Thanks to everyone for making 04.21.07 the best day of our lives as well. It was amazing to see everyone and you helped make it a fantastic day that will live in our minds forever.

The Clique

Ben VanKat
Troy Bell
Chris VanKat

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