New Website I'm working on

(sunset beach, my favorite part of the North Shore from my BYU Hawaii Days)

As some of you know, Britt and I had our honeymoon at the Marriot in Center Street in Provo. We also took a trip to Lincoln City and to DC for receptions. In hindsight maybe we should have planned an awesome trip to an island. So I'm going to make it up to everyone and help them plan their dream honeymoon.

http://honeymoondestinations.org/ Is a website run by Marc and I. You may remember Marc from his glasses website Justeyewear.com which is still doing well. We really think it can do well. It will be a destination for people who are planning honeymoons.

Please check it out and let me know what you think! There are lots of ways to take a honeymoon even if you already married. Second honeymoons, babymoons, and commitment ceremonies are great excuses to take a trip. If you know anyone that is getting married, send them to the site! I really appreciate you checking it out and telling a friend. You guys rule.

-Joe

Can you tell?

Which of these pictures is Microsoft Founder Bill Gates, and which is my International Law professor Roger Steinhardt? 6 more days of finals!!! ( No fair looking at the picture URLs)

Gun Show

Went to the National Gun Show today and made sure to wear my best camo. I don't own any guns, but I do like to people watch. The gun show was in the same building where we went to the cat show. not a lot of crossover between the two groups.


Older Bro Ben


BFF Marc


Lots of Third reich memorabilia. not sure if the sellers were like "this was part of history and worth collecting" or like "Man, those were the days" but either way, nazi stuff is way expensive. marc didnt buy any because he didnt want to feel like the neighbor from "American Beauty"

A stool made out of an elephants foot

Lots of ron paul supporters. obama... not so much.

Joe and Janet in Town

Always good to have family in town. Couldn't put it better than they did, so we'll link to their post

http://janetandjoe.blogspot.com/2011/11/dc-visit.html

Xbox Live

My Xbox account got hacked, and I finally got it back. The Tl;Dr version is that Microsoft customer support is very good, but when they say it will take up to 30 business days, they mean it. Total it took like 2 months to get my account back.

I don't know how it was hacked, but someone took over the account, and transfered my subscription and MS points to another account (total value ~$60). It's one of those frustrating situations where you would literally pay the person $80 NOT to do it. It's not the money, but the fact that you route your online life through one account and its a pain to re do everything.

The second frustration is that everything important is ancient. It's all routed through your Hotmail account, which you haven't touched since 1999. The passwords are from a bygone era. I think half of my passwords back then had to do with Party of 5 and RL Stine novels. The other problem is the "secret questions" that they use to identify you. They are equally dated, and by not knowing then YOU sound like the hacker, and then microsoft gets all suspicious of you. Also, half of them are publicly accesible, such as your mother's maiden name. This is how a string of celebrities recently all had their accounts hacked, its because all of their secret questions could be answered with a 2 second google search. Paris Hilton actually had the name of her dog as her secret question.

ID Theft makes you feel totally taken advantage of. It's mean. Anyway, I'm glad to have my account back, even though I'm on self imposed video game exile until finals are over. Safe gaming everyone!

Favorite Song?

Do you have a favorite song? I have a lot that I like. But if I had to name one my favorite, I would say "This is not an exit" by Saves The Day. It's a being proud of the life you've lived.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ktspiLaqTU&hd=1

Leave your favorite song in the comments.

i mostly wanted to get my fat picture off the top of the blog

Guest Post by the Average Joe

i was 176 pounds when i moved to dc. now i'm down to 148!

The Legwarmers

Some of you may remember that I went to see a fun 80's cover band last year with my friends. 

Joe was talked into going with some of his friends a few weeks ago. I opted out, but had fun helping with the outfit. P.S. look how skinny he is!!

OBX

We had a great Cramer family reunion in Duck this summer. Joe's parents rented a house just a few minutes' walk from the beach and right next door to a rec. center. In attendance? 13 adults and 13 kids! We ate nightly as a group (with a different family assigned to cooking each night,) but spent the days leisurely reading, making trips to the beach, playing tennis and croquet, hitting the pool and hot tub, and just enjoying each others' company. We really lucked out with the weather; the next week, houses were evacuated before the hurricane! 

It was a wonderful trip. Many thanks to Lew and Barb!

Where were you...

...when the earthquake hit?

I was in new-teacher training with 20+ other people. We all looked around for about 5 seconds, then I started to get under my desk while everyone else ran out of the classroom into the hallway. I remember earthquake drills: you get under your desk and cover the back of your neck. But nobody else did that, so I doubted myself and ran after them. Then we all went outside and started texting and updating Facebook statuses (obviously). Joe was at work (the basement level of his building,) and readily admits that he ran out without concern for the well-being of anyone else. Quote: "I will never need a reminder to put my oxygen mask on before assisting someone else."

We were both released early, and luckily made it home without getting stuck in any crazy traffic. I *get* that it wasn't a huge earthquake and we there was not a ton of damage, but what a lot of people don't respect is that this area is not used to earthquakes...or flood-producing rain.

The rain last week was incredible. The worst of it came on a Thursday, and my 35 minute commute turned into an hour and 45 minutes. It was awful. The actual rain reminded me of a big Oregon storm, but the roads and drivers were not used it...it was ugly. Some of my friends were stuck at work; one is a teacher, and her students kept getting sent back on buses because they couldn't navigate the flooded neighborhoods or the students' parents couldn't get home from work.

FPCS schools were closed the next day from the rain, and no one was complaining...a 3-day school week? Yes! We'll probably regret using up that "snow" day when we're working well into June, but whatever.

Turtle Power

It was fun to have Dave living out here again this summer! 4 of the 6 Cramer siblings were within 45 minutes of each other, and we had lots of fun. One night Dave brought a few people over from the Barlow Center and we hosted a TMNT party. I had lots of fun setting up and baking pizzas non-stop while the crew watched the original Turtles movie.

The non-meat ingredients for 8 homemade pizzas

Turtle eyemask-making station

Turtles can play Rock Band, too.

The whole gang

Drinking Mutagen (or Jelly Bean green apple soda from TJ MAXX)

More Mutagen

Kind of tired by the end of the night...and Joe's eyemask kind of left some residue on his forehead.