The update

Lately, I have completely lost motivation to update this blog and I am not sure why? If anyone still reads this here is the update. Summer went by fast, I spent most weekends working at the Cigar shop or at the lake. It was a really busy summer. Lots of great things packed in but not alot of time to take it easy. I went to Italy with my family (see post) to. Now it is fall and it seems like life has slowed down a little bit. The second bathroom is nearly finished at my house. No more lake weekends now its football and kayaking. A group of us rafted the Gauley river in west Virginia a few weekends ago. Kathryn is a freshman at Auburn now so I have been to a few games this season (LSU and WSU). Auburn looks completely different now, construction everywhere.

I think I am going to the Nantahala to kayak this weekend. I struggle with wanting to do to many things and not having enough time to fit it all in and rest to. I think weekends need to be 3 days long. I am still involved with the GC at Briarwood. It has been great to see it grow and meet alot of great people through it. I have learned alot and grown alot there. It is so easy to get caught up in the busyness of everyday life and neglect time with God and in the word. God's faithfulness is amazing. I am reminded of the wise words of Chad (former JH head river guide) "There are only 2 times to praise God, when you feel like it and when you don't." Good words to remember.

The store is taking up most of my time right now. It is still growing slowly and I guess it is just going to take a long time to get to where it needs to be. I enjoy it and the random people I meet there. I am learning alot there to. Lately, Matt has been talking about putting together a JH intern reunion in January. Climb Shasta, Snowboard Etna Summit, snowshoeing above the Ranch. I can think of few things that sound more fun than that to me right now. Hopefully I can go. Maybe Dan has figured out the Day trading thing by now so we can just trade in between ski season and lake season and work at the Ranch in the summers. Probably not . Maybe one day.

Check out my website It needs help. That is about the best publisher can do. not very good.

Italia !!!

I returned June 2nd from the trip to Italy with my family. It was a great trip! My first to Europe. We flew in to Rome and spent 4 days there. It is a beautiful city but very busy and crowded. We saw all of the major sites there. My favorite part of Rome was this huge park about 2 blocks from the hotel. From Rome we took the Eurostar train to Florence. Florence is significantly smaller and easier to navigate. We toured several art galleries and churches there and went on a day trip to Siena and San Gimagno. Vienna was next. It was my favorite place because there were no cars, just canals and sidewalks. It is amazing that people have boats instead of cars there. It was beautiful. We flew out of Venice direct to New York where our flight was delayed for about 4 hours so we did not get back to Birmingham until about 4am. It was a great trip. Pictures are on the way!

My new website!

Click here to see the website I have been working on . It has a long way to go.

What am I doing?

Finally, the long awaited update is here. For some reason I have had a hard time motivating myself to update the blog lately.

I have spent most of the past few months working with my dad to open a cigar store. We finally opened about 2 months ago. I have learned alot through the whole process. Now I am there all of the time. It is amazing how much time went into it. I meet crazy interesting people every day there. Sometimes it is alot of fun but other times it drives me insane.

For the past several months I felt like I had not made alot of progress and then it seems like everything happened all at once. The new store opened, I moved into a house, and things started coming together with my church.

My roomates and I are in the middle of tearing out 2 bathrooms in our house and completely renovating them. It is fun but none of us really have enough time to do it right now so it is taking longer than it should. After the bathrooms we have alot of landscaping to do.

The Grand Opening for the store is next week. It should bring in lots of new people. A local radio station will broadcast their afternoon show from the store on Tuesday and one of the Cigar companies will be here giving away sample cigars.

Jim and I are going to be in a road bike race this weekend near Montgomery. It is my first race. It should be fun if it doesn't rain. I want to start doing these races whenever I have time.

Lake Season is finally here! My favorite time of the year. The boat is running great (1983 Ski Nautique). I wakeboarded Sat and Sunday last week. I am very out of shape. It has been about a year since I have been able to go alot. The weather on Logan Martin lake was great. I think it is going to rain this weekend.