Anyone seen my walker?

If you didn't know, my (Dave) birthday was this past Monday, Sept. 21st. This year was "significant" I suppose because I turned 30. I'm supposed to feel old now, right? I guess. It doesn't really bother me so it's more a "oh man I'm 30 now ha ha but I really don't care" mentality. Does that make sense? Okay good.

So what did I do? Nothing special really. I mean that in the sense that I didn't do something crazy in the vein of I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm not getting older. I flew to LA to visit my parents. Allison didn't get to tag along for various personal reasons mostly involving school and work overload.

But it was all for naught because of the rains in Atlanta of Noah's Ark proportion. Up until this past weekend, it had been raining pretty much every day for almost a week. Highly unusual for Atlanta. Apparently my birthday was the worst day and caused some pretty major flooding in and around Atlanta. So she didn't have to teach Tuesday or Wednesday and her college class was cancelled on Monday night. Oh well.

Allison and I are safe. There were some roads near us that were temporarily closed in certain sections where there was a creek or some body of water nearby. By the time I got home early Tuesday, the water in those isolated areas had receded. But there are areas that still have water up to rooftops, mostly directly to the west of Atlanta. There was a picture on the news of a wooden roller coaster at Six Flags that was completely submerged in the lowest parts of the track. Yeah. Not going on that ride EVER AGAIN. That is, if I ever even go there again.

Anyway, below is a link to some pictures from my short visit to LA. The captions, as usual, will explain what you're looking at. My dad took off work on Monday so he and I went on a "photo hunt" in downtown LA and ended up spending our entire 2 hour parking meter time at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Frank Gehry architected it so it presents quite a photographic opportunity as you'll see. I usually don't post as much of my artistic photography as I did this time. Oh and I posted some of my dad's photos too.

(Hint: They are the ones I'M in :-)

Click here to see the photos.

Sacrificed Sons

Walls are closing
Anxiously
Channel surfing
Frantically

Burning city
Smoke and fire
Planes we're certain
Faith inspired

No clues
A complete surprise
Who'll be
Coming home tonight

Heads all turning
Towards the sky
Towers crumble
Heroes die

Who would wish this on
Our people?
And proclaim
That His will be done
Scriptures they heed have misled them
All praise their Sacrificed Sons
All praise their Sacrificed Sons

Teach them
What to think and feel
Your ways
So enlightening

Words they preach
I can't relate
If God's true love
Are acts of hate


We will never forget.

Lyrics by James LaBrie, Dream Theater NYC 2005