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Monday, March 28th, 2005
New Stuff | I hardly post here anymore but it's mostly because 1. I'm lazy 2. I've been really busy. It's also the reason I haven't updated my website. Mostly due to reason 1 though. As far as exploring goes, I have been having a hard time keeping up with all of the new developments. I met a whole slew of new explorers who always seem to be good about making me decide to visit a new place. I doubt I can even count the places I have been to that are not on my site: Seaholm Power plant, Mansfield Manufacturing, Austin House AA, Austin Athletic Center, A cool Putt-Putt golf - batting cage and roller rink, King Williams Healthcare Center, 5 Points Flood Tunnel, North Cotton Seed Oil, the list goes on... Wow, that turned out to be a to-do list for my website as much as anything else.
Also, I finally got a new steady job. Hooray for me. This means that I will have an income most of all and I can pay for living expenses but maybe I can start saving again too. Fortunately I really like my job so far. I used my tax return to get myself a newer reliable car. It's nice to have reliable transportation.
In all, except for being such a lazy ass, I feel pretty good about my current situation. |
| Sunday, November 28th, 2004
A bit of traveling. | You know, it really sucks to meet a fellow explorer and not be able to go explore with them. On my way to my parents’ house in East Texas, I had the opportunity to stop in Dallas and go explore. I had lots of fun exploring the Parkland Hospital and the 16-story office building with Noah Vale and spent the night at Dirtbag’s house but I only had enough time to basically say hello to Drie when she flew in. Later, after I had left, Servo arrived and for the rest of the week the four of them went exploring. Why does this have to happen when I can’t be there? Gha!
Fortunately, my Mom has been telling me about a place that she wanted to take me to. My Mom and Dad scouted out an old school a few miles into Louisiana and we decided to go explore it when I got there. It turned out to be a really cool place with a large Gym/stage as one building and a second 2-story building that housed the 35-40 classrooms. It also had a basement but there wasn’t much to see in there. It was pretty awesome and I took 100+ pictures.
We also went to Texarkana where I found 2, 15+ story hotels. Unfortunately one was directly next to the police station and across the street from a prison. The other was not any easier to get into just because the total lack of entrances and lack of cover. At least I got some good pictures of the outside. On my way back home I might try to get into another place that I will reveal later. Also, hopefully I will be able to hang out with Dirtbag in Dallas before I get home.
Even with not being able to explore with people from out of state, at least I saw a great deal of good stuff – and hope to see more before it’s over. Besides that, I need to travel more… maybe you can expect me in your state soon… probably not. 
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| Monday, October 11th, 2004
Recent UE. | Went to San Antonio this weekend to visit my brother. After taking some pictures of my brother’s art we decided to try and look at a few UE places. I've been exploring an abandoned hospital in San Antonio but I want to go at least one more time before I post it. I tried to go during the day this time as suggested to me by Allva but unfortunately there was a policewoman sitting in her car parked in one of the hospital's parking lots.
Since that was a complete no-go, we decided to check out some drains near the Lone Star Brewery. There are several points of interest in this area and we decided to go from one to the next. The Lone Star property was full of landscapers cutting the grass so we didn’t go there either. I got some good pictures of the Mission Road Power Plant and Gas Training building (active) nearby and on the way found 2 additional drains large enough for me to walk upright through. Both of them went about 3 blocks before turning into belly-crawl sized tunnels. Nothing too special but fun none-the-less.
We checked out the tunnel we had originally spotted but decided not to go because we only had one pair of rubber boots and this one required at least that. Also there was a guy with his kids sitting right next to it fishing in the river. Right next to this tunnel was the San Antonio River Tunnel Outlet Structure Facility. This place is pretty interesting but to really explore it you would need a key and SCUBA equipment. From what I understand, it is a facility to provide flood control and recirculation for the San Antonio river and is basically a tunnel running under San Antonio completely filled with water and it comes straight up from the ground at this facility and flows into the river. There are signs, sirens and warning lights that are used when they need to open it up past the normal mark and basically do a controlled flood of the river and flood plain that surrounds it.
I’ll probably post some pictures of this stuff when I get home. In all, not a bad weekend excursion.
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| Monday, September 20th, 2004
Camera decisions. | I think I’ve narrowed it down to the following cameras:
Konica Minolta DiMAGE A1
$424.00
http://www.steves-...03_reviews/a1.html
CompactFlash Card
NP-400 Li-ion 7.4v 1500mAh supplied with BC-400 rapid charger
30 seconds to 1/16,000
5mp
Vari-angle (-20 to 90°) 1.8-inch color LCD
Canon PowerShot G6
Price range: $589.99 - $720.23
http://www.steves-...04_reviews/g6.html
CompactFlash Type II slot compatible with Microdrives
High-capacity BP-511A lithium rechargeable battery pack
7.4 Megapixel
15 secs
Nikon Coolpix 8700 Digital Camera
Price range: $475.00 - $999.99
http://www.steves-...ews/nikon8700.html
CompactFlash Type II
Prop./2CR5
8-Megapixel
8 s and Bulb/Time (up to 10 minutes) in Manual [M]
Fully articulating 270°, 1.8" color LCD monitor
If anyone has any input on these cameras I would appreciate it.
I've got to decide soon or else risk freaking out completely. |
| Tuesday, September 7th, 2004
Life as I know it. | Hey everybody, I finally decided to start one of these things. It comes at a time when I've got the most amount of free time on my hands yet I find myself being the laziest I've been in a long time. Maybe being without a job naturally does that to you. Don’t get me wrong though, I have been actively looking for a job since day one but everything else has kinda stopped where I left it.
I would use this time to do some more exploring but just last week one of the most horrible things I could think of next to getting arrested happened to me. I went to a movie with a friend and he drove. I enjoyed the movie just fine (Hero) but when we came out I was the first to notice that my friend’s passenger side window was not in the place we left it. That’s right, it was all over the passenger seat, floor and ground. Before the show I made sure to grab my camera bag like I always do because you never have a camera when you see something interesting to take a picture of. I knew it was gone but checked the floorboard anyways. The only things he took were my camera bag and some of my friends dirty clothes in the back seat. WTF.
We filed a police report and told the management about what happened even though the likelihood of something ever coming of it is slim to none. When we went to the management they told us they just recently installed a security camera and believe it or not we actually got to watch the crime take place.
Wow. What shitty luck I’ve had lately.
On another note maybe I have a little good luck coming my way. Totally unrelated to what we know about the UE reality TV show to be on the Discovery Channel, I was recently contacted by a producer interested in doing something similar. So far he is in the early, early stages – from the sound of it, just an idea stage. So far I have been very wary of the whole thing trying to ensure against some kind of scam. I know almost everyone has an opinion about pros and cons of a UE based reality TV show but if I can at least help to steer this in the right direction I will do the best I can. I don’t have a whole lot of information yet but hope to get more soon. I will try to update this the more info I get. I also want to thank the people whom I chatted with last week about this though I regretfully don’t remember who it was. I know if you’re interested you will want to know more but please be patient, I don’t want to give away to much yet. 
We’ll aside from that, the only other thing is that now since I’m without a camera I’ll be looking for a new one. But before I can do that I really need a source of income. Gha! Maybe I’ll actually update my site sometime. I was almost finished with resizing pictures for an update at work when I stopped having a work. That kinda pisses me off too. Oh well, I’m beginning to think loosing that job was for the best. I really did hate that place anyways. Bastards.
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