June 13th, 2001

In Fresno...

Well, yesterday's pictures are on today's page. If you don't like it, tough. ;)

Well, you know what I did yesterday, so I'll talk about the stuff that happened today.

Well, after last night's aborted attempt at dinner, Chris, his woman and I go get lunch at a place called the Silver Dollar. It's a bar/restaraunt/buffet place. The food is quite good too, I got a meatloaf plate and was impressed at how tasty it was.

So after we eat lunch there we drive around Fresno a while. Chris shows me some of the sites... I think he's hoping I'll move out here to keep him company. The idea isn't exactly unappealing. More or less we're killing time before a meeting he needs to have with his boss. 2:30 rolls around and we drop in on his place of employment, Veritance Web Technologies.

His boss is pretty cool... a fairly religous fellow from the sound of things, but a really nice guy. Funny sense of humour. We chatter with him for an hour or so, and he bids us farewell.

From there we go to this ice cream shop called The Cold Stone Creamery. I don't recall ever seeing anything like it down in Florida... the Iowan equivalent would be Maggie Moos. You select a flavor of ice cream, and some topping(s). They get a blob of ice cream, a couple ladles of topping and mix it all up in front of you and give it to you in a cup or cone. The amusing thing is, if you tip them a dollar they have to sing some silly song for you. So of course, Chris tipped them a dollar.

After desert we go to Chris's place and he introduces me to his dog, Rocky, this great big mix boxer. Looks all threatening and stuff but is the biggest sweetie... he was my best friend five minutes after we got there.

I visited them at their place for a bit, then had Chris bring me home. It's been good seeing him again... I'd missed him.

From there I drove out to Tina and Dan's place for dinner. Their kids were glad to see me, as I have become Jungle Jim Peter to them... I can lift em up one armed and fling em around and they think it's all sorts of cool.

We have a nice chicken dinner and afterwards we go for a walk. Kate and Brian are zooming around all over the place, and Jason hangs out in the stroller. We make a few laps around and the kids start to tire, then it's back home for a little ice cream and their bedtime.

After they go to bed I stay up a couple hours talking to Tina and Dan and catching up on different things. It's sort of cool... she talked about even though we really don't know each other that well... that there's a bond there and we get along like we've known each other.

She also said something else... with my mom and dad moving across the country... she felt like she was sort of cheated of the oppurtunity to have cousins nearby to grow up with. That among other things got me thinking (which you'll see in tommorrow's entry).

One last entry. Hello to you all signing my guestbook! One thing though... whoever the "i'm after you" from "alabama" is... why don't you send me an email? I think I need to smack you around a bit... :P