busy weekend!

christopher and i have had a fun but busy weekend. it was his first free weekend after having to put in all those extra hours for a design review he had tuesday. (it went well, by the way.) so friday night, we went on a date... he surprised me with these beautiful irises, then took me to a new restaurant in greenville, the nosedive. it is operated by the same restaurant group that owns my favorite restaurant, the lazy goat. the concept for the nosedive is "gastropub," which apparently means common food prepared in an uncommon way. for example, our appetizer was fries three ways- porcini mushroom dusted, sweet potato, and lime salt with dipping sauces of citrus chipotle & truffle aioli. chris had a burger and i had a croque madame, which is a croque monsieur with an egg on top (my high school french teacher would be proud!). for dessert we had the krispy kreme brulee (delicious! though it didn't really taste like the donut) with espresso chocolate chip cookies. we have lived in greenville almost three years and really enjoyed our apartment complex. this year we are starting to look for houses, and yesterday was our first outing with the realtor. it was really fun, but kind of exhausting! there's so much to think about. we saw four houses and there was one that i could really see us in. when you find one you like, it's hard not to imagine way ahead- chris was thinking about having a "man cave" and i was thinking about a craft room for my art projects. when we were at our favorite (so far) house, i ran back upstairs to take one more picture, and i found myself getting a little teary looking into one of the bedrooms and thinking, this could be a nursery one day! i guess it's easy to get emotional buying a house because it is so much more than money or how many rooms it has- it's where you are relocating your life. good thing for me, i have a logical-minded, engineering husband who can balance me out. we are meeting with our realtor again next weekend to look at several more. i am eager & hopeful, but i also want to be patient and trust in God's timing & provision for this (and all!) area(s) of our life.

upward

chris started coaching basketball last winter with the upward program at our church. this year, he is coaching with liz's boyfriend scott. what a great help scott is, since he actually played basketball in high school! yesterday liz & i went to their game to cheer them on. miss leah came along, too and was so sweet, waving to her daddy and clapping. we had a good time and the kids were so cute! they don't keep score at this age (1st & 2nd graders), but they seemed to have fun. so this is where christopher is every saturday during january & february!

pig pickin'

katy told y'all about what she did last weekend, so now i'll let you in on my half of the story. i've been working a ton of hours lately, so sorry you haven't heard from me in a while. typically we drive down to alma, ga on memorial day weekend for a good time of eating and family fellowship with the rimes (my mom's side of the family). since katy wasn't able to go this year, i drove down to my parents' house on thursday night and made the rest of the drive with them on friday morning. we got to alma around mid-day to find another typical scene: folks shooting something just for fun. :) my cousin chuck (fellow TECH man) made a potato gun earlier in the week, and he and kyle were giving it a whirl. needless to say, around 20 lbs of potatoes and a few cans of white rain hairspray were gone by the end of the weekend, and they weren't used for salad or hair fixin'.
my grandfather started our memorial day family tradition about 12 years ago with the pig pickin'. those of you who went to high school with me probably remember this. we did that for 5-7 years, and for various reasons stopped cooking the pig for the last several years. well, this year we went "whole hog" again. my cousin will set in motion the awesome plan for the grandsons who would be there to begin doing this again. all the plans were made and the supplies were gathered before we got to alma. one important thing was missing:

the 90 lb pig!

we picked up the pig on friday afternoon from d.l. lee & sons, a meat processing and packaging plant owned by some other cousins of ours (my great grandmother was a lee). if you ever see any lee brand sausages in the store, pick up a package - they're delicious. we can't get them up here in greenville, so i brought a few packs back for future enjoyment.

we went to bed semi-early on friday night and woke up at 4:00-4:30 the next morning for cooking. the day started out with preparing the coals. getting charcoal and wood ready for pit coals is much more fun if you have the right tools.

we put the pig on at about 5, and the rest of the morning was full of coffee, smoked sausages, talking, watching the pit temperature, adding new coals to the fire, and jerry clower's greatest hits. here's one of my favorites.

(l to r) will, me, kevin, & jay intently watching the pig.

around 11:30, we turned the pig and gave it a slathering of some of good sauce.

after it was finished cooking, the "chefs" enjoyed a few moments of pulled ribs and other good meat - a true reward for waking up early and cooking all day. finally, the chopping and pulling commenced to produce the final product: lots and lots of chopped and pulled pork (enough for 31 with 2 hams left over).

6 of the 7 rimes grandsons
(l to r) kyle, me, will, jay, kevin, & chuck

folks, this was some good eatin', and we've definitely renewed a family tradition.

on sunday mr. mike cooks up a low-country boil, and it was as good as ever.

some delicious low-country boil: shrimp, sausage, corn, potatoes, and onions

of course, most of the family was there and we had a good time talking, eating, driving around town, shooting potato guns and real guns, fishing, sitting under the carport, eating (repeated for emphasis), and relaxing in general. memorial day weekend and most others with our family are just a good ole' southern good time.

that's my king!

who knew - two video posts in a row. :) here's a video that was played at brushy creek on easter sunday (first created by granger community church). it's an awesome video mix of the passion of the christ and a sermon called seven way king spoken by s.m. lockridge. click the bottom right to go full screen to get the full effect.

catching up...

over two months since we last blogged - we are officially busy (and bad bloggers)!

so i'm going to do a photo medley post to catch you up on what we've been up to since the last post:

oct. 17: saturday night win over virginia tech preceeded by awesome tailgate. even the goal posts "got down" ;)

oct. 31: katy dressed up as daphne from scooby doo for halloween. i was busy in nashville at the tech game against vandy.

nov. 26: thanksgiving with the rimes family in alma. my 2nd cousins loved sitting in the big recliner with katy and eva!

nov. 28: tech-uga game. 35 folks plus 30+ pounds of fried turkey made for an awesome tailgate that turned out to be better than the game. sorry no pictures, our camera batteries died. if anyone has anything to say, my response is i hope you have fun at the independence bowl ;)

dec. 5: acc championship game vs. clemson with tilman in tampa, fl. jackets won 39-34, and we're going to the orange bowl!

dec. 11: sunday school christmas party at the hartsells' house. here's a picture of the wives because they look better than the husbands.

that's about it for now. katy and i are both off this week and looking forward to visiting family and friends in augusta and elsewhere. we wish each of you a very merry christmas and happy new year!

early new year's resolution: blog a little more in 2010.

it's that time of year again...

you guessed it: it's football season. katy and i had a wonderful weekend in atlanta going to a wedding and visiting friends (see post below). still, my favorite and most anticipated part of the weekend was the first georgia tech football game. i always tell katy she doesn't have to do anything much for my birthday because the ncaa decides to start football season around the first of september. thanks ncaa!

as with every home football game, we started out the day with our usual tailgate. we didn't take any overall pictures of the set up, but the grill, lots of food, and satellite tv were present and accounted for. katy bought an excellent ice cream cake for a tailgate birthday celebration with all of our friends. here's a picture of me with the cake. i didn't blow out all the candles in one breath because of that first pesky y. good thing i didn't wish for an undefeated season!

last year the athletic association was running a special deal, so we bought four tickets and invited folks to games with us. this year we decided to get a little better seat location. we've got two tickets and are sitting with our friends the freemans and derek. katy thinks the game moves along much more quickly with linda there to talk to!


here are a few more pictures. the first is the view from our new seats in the upper east stands, and the second is beautiful tech tower, a campus icon, as seen from bobby dodd stadium at historic grant field (the oldest and winningest stadium in division 1-a football).

finally, here's a picture of katy and me after the game. we're looking forward to many more fun and exciting football weekends this fall!

places we like to eat: the lazy goat

katy tells me i haven't posted in a long time. i told her it's because she wasn't working and was able to beat me to the punch with every exciting event that we've had for the last few months. i figured i'd ease back into the blog with a personal favorite: places we like to eat, greenville edition.

today's restaurant is the lazy goat. it has quickly become one of our favorite downtown restaurants, and they've always got something interesting to eat. it's a great place for date night or a night out with friends, and with a motto like time well wasted, you know it has to be good.









restaurant: the lazy goat

food: mediterranean with a southern flair. at the lazy goat, you can have tapas (appetizer sized portions) or a regular entree portion. we've enjoyed many of the tapas, but the past few times we've been i've chosen from the entrees. a few months ago i tried a special that was brazed oxtails served over a bed of fava beans (shout out to all the hannibal lecter fans!). last weekend, i had the lazy goat paella which was my favorite dish there so far. some of our favorite tapas are the moroccan lamb and the fried goat cheese. we've tried something new and different each time we've gone to the lazy goat, and we've never been disappointed.

service: on a scale of 1-5, i'd give it a solid 4. we've had one visit with spotty service, but the wait staff has typically been excellent.

price: appetizers are $5-10, entrees are $10-20.

dress: casual to business casual

address: 170 river place, greenville, sc 29601

website: the lazy goat

spring is here

spring is officially here. i rang in the season this evening by grilling out for the first time in 2009. with the recent good weather, an impromptu meal of cheeseburgers and french fries was in order. i can honestly say that it doesn't get much better than a messy cheeseburger and salty fries on a windy spring day, though a messy cheeseburger on a windy fall day before a football game just might take the cake.

anyhow, spring is here and it couldn't have come soon enough. we're looking to sunny saturday afternoons, going home from work before it's dark, being outdoors, and swimming at the pool. we'll keep you updated on all the activities!

saturday fun

we just got a new computer (no vista problems yet, wes and blakely), so i guess that means i'll have to start posting again. actually i'm finally finished with my december to january work marathon, which means i might have some time to post.

work has been going really well lately. i had several big projects that i finished without any issues, and i'm blessed to have a job that i really enjoy. katy was very supportive of my working long hours for those weeks to get the job finished. i'm happy that i'm through with those, and i'm looking forward to a few months of more normal hours and having all my time free on the weekends.

katy and i had a pretty great saturday yesterday. the weather was beautiful, and we started out the day having breakfast at broadway bagels with our new friends blaire and tim. we're enjoying getting to know them and some of the other couples in our sunday school class. we sometimes think that we'll have plenty of time to visit folks out of town, but our schedules are quickly getting filled with greenville events. it's great because it means that all the time greenville is more like home, and we're developing some good friendships and getting plugged into church here. don't worry, there are still many trips to atlanta and elsewhere planned for the future!

after breakfast i ran some errands. it had been over 6 months (but still under 3000 miles) since i had had the oil changed in my car. it's definitely nice to have a 2.5 mile commute when your car is getting old. after errands katy and i drove to outlet malls at gaffney. we were going to exchange some things i had received for christmas, but katy certainly didn't mind the opportunity to go shopping for a little while. she did buy a dress for the upcoming ge prom, which we were happy to find out will be held this year despite the slow economic times.

we finished up the day by going downtown with scott and liz. we went to takosushi, so katy and i had the unusual combination of chicken nachos, lettuce wraps, and sushi rolls. while i've been skeptical about the theme for this combo restaurant, for me, the nachos and sushi combo worked. this beautiful saturday has both of us looking forward to spring big time.

published...

i can now add author to my list of accomplishments. my grad school paper is finally getting published! it's in the american society of mechanical engineers journal of manufacturing science and engineering. click here for the citation. the funniest thing is that they sell it for $25 per copy. if you actually want to read it, you'll have to subscribe to asme or pay up! :)

ramblings...

like i always say at the beginning of a post, it has been too long since i last blogged. katy has been doing such a good job keeping up with our goings-on that i haven't really had anything more to say. but, she's watching the hills and we only have one tv, so i literally have nothing else to do. so, i'll give it a shot.

i've been living the blue collar life these days as i'm working out on the shop floor for a two week manufacturing rotation. this kind of stuff is right up my alley; sometimes it's much more fun to get to work with those guys than deal with the day-to-day office frustrations. but, it's back to "real" work next week, and i'll be glad to do it. between this training, our vacation, and another week of training prior to that i've effectively been out of the office for about a month. luckily, i work with some great folks and we all try to pick up each other's slack when training and travel come around.

my birthday was last week. i'm 25 now, but i don't feel any different. maybe my car insurance bill will be cheaper this november.

football season officially started 11 days ago. so far the jackets are 2-0, and i'm still very much enjoying football season. here's to hoping for a great season and many good times in atlanta with old college friends.

we're still looking for a church, and we've basically got it narrowed down to two. we like different aspects of both, and we're sort of dreading making the choice. please pray that God would show us (in one way or another) where He would have us serve. we love greenville so far, and we know that it will be much easier to get involved once we're settled into a church.

maybe something exciting will happen this week, and i'll be back to blogging before you know it. i'll keep you posted...

there was no joy in mudville...

i was sad to read last night that long time atlanta braves announcer skip caray had died. baseball, both little league and the braves, comprised some of the formative experiences of my childhood. i loved playing baseball (usually coached by my dad), and we used to watch the braves together every night. i remember the worst to first braves, i know exactly where i was when sid slid, and glavine, smoltz, and avery were just three of my heroes. i used to dread when jeff blauser would come to the plate. baseball then was innocent for me. it was a perfect game, and i knew nothing about free agency, players unions, or performance enhancing drugs.

i remember my first game at old atlanta-fulton county stadium with my dad. we got there way too early to see batting practice, and i had a blast. all along the way skip, pete, don, and joe called all of the games. i hated listening to other announcers (especially during the playoffs; i still can't stand tim mccarver) because they weren't braves homers and it just didn't feel right. my parents would let me stay up late to watch the playoff games (life lesson: you can only stay up late for sports!), and i probably drove my parents crazy doing the tomahawk chop in the living room. i still hate the twins and blue jays, and it was *so* satisfying to finally win the world series in '95.

i guess hearing about skip really brought back some cheesy but good childhood memories for me. here's a perfect moment from my childhood, and one last tribute to skip caray. he truly will be missed.

california trip!

i am finally getting around to uploading my pictures from my trip to california.

on the first morning of my trip, i flew from charlotte to dallas. i brought a book, and my first flight was rather uneventful. upon landing in dallas, i was reminded by every souvenir shop and restaurant sign that i was indeed in texas. i had a short layover, and arrived to my connecting gate to see my luggage getting wet in the rain at dfw. good times! my connecting flight was from dallas to ontario (california not canada), and i had the joy of sitting in the middle seat between a talkative older woman (who nearly spilled her wine on me a few times) and a man who was about 6'4'', 240 lb. they were both nice folks, but i quickly realized that i would not get much reading in on this flight and that two men of our size should not sit next to one another on a flight in coach. i hadn't flown in a while, but i'm pretty sure those seats are smaller than the last time i did.

it was a work trip, but i did have a chance during the weekend to do some sightseeing. on saturday, some coworkers and i decided to go hiking in joshua tree national forest.


the park was about two hours from our hotel, so i actually got to know a few coworkers outside of work. a few interesting landmarks along the way: 1) an 11,000+ ft. mountain with snow still on its peak, and 2) a whole bunch of wind turbines (that's right, you guessed it, ge). we ate at a real mexican restaurant along the way - pretty much the same as monterrey.

we wouldn't call joshua tree a forest in the southeast, but there were a lot more trees there than anywhere nearby. it's on the border of the mojave and colorado deserts, so you get the idea. the joshua tree is a pretty cool looking tree that's a member of the yucca family. anway, that's all more than you wanted to know, so i'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures.




on sunday, i went to the world famous san diego zoo. i'll be honest, it was just a zoo, but they did have some cool animals that i hadn't seen before. like a komodo dragon:

no flying unicorns or centaurs, so apparently the world famous part has to do with the breeding and conservation programs. i also stopped off at la jolla beach about 10 miles north of san diego. very pretty beach, very cold water. i like the gulf stream.


the rest of the time was just work, so if you really want to know you can ask. the flight home was as uneventful as the flight there. all in all, it was a pretty good first company travel experience.

leavin' on a jet plane

fortunately, i know when i'll be back again. i leave tomorrow morning for sunny temecula, california for work. temecula is a smallish town between la and san diego, so i'm hoping to see a few sights on my trip. i'm going to be there for a turbine test. this basically means i have to sit in a test trailer all day monitoring sensors. in other words, it's a lot of engineers watching computer screens and hoping nothing goes wrong. imagine nasa mission control minus the excitement of a shuttle going into outer space and cool phrases like "houston, we have a problem" and "the eagle has landed."

in any case, it's my first test and my first real travel with the company - so i'm at least a little excited. i'm going to try to make it to san diego on one of my off days (katy and i already discussed that if she were going she would choose to make a trip to la). i'll be back in sc on the 23rd, so i hope to update then. wish me luck!

moving day...

once again it has been a long time since i've blogged (but not as long as erika!), and life has definitely been busy in the meantime. we are rapidly approaching our move date. it seems weird to say that we're moving in 6 days, and we haven't done anything to prepare yet. i'm glad the general is footing the bill for the movers. i haven't experienced it yet, but after the move i'll let you know how great it is to watch someone else move all of our stuff out of our third floor apartment.

i've been busy with work, katy's been busy with school - what else is new? still we've found time to hang out with plenty of friends that we will miss dearly once we move to greenville. the list includes, but is not limited to: dinner at alfredo's (i should write another "places we like to eat" entry on this one), tech vs. uga baseball game, tech vs. miami baseball game and steak n' shake afterward, dinner at little szechuan, lunches at canton cooks and artuzzi's, and dinner at clay's (earlier tonight actually). can you tell we like to eat? i definitely believe good friends and good food go together. we've got two last events planned for the weekend: genki (our fave sushi joint) with wes and blakely, and olive garden for lunch with our sunday school class. we will definitely miss all of these folks, and we hope to come back to atlanta early and often.

in the midst of all this business, i'm really enjoying life. work is enjoyable, and i thankfully haven't had too many other after work responsibilities. we're looking forward to being totally out of school and going on weekend trips and having generally all around good times. God has blessed us so much in this busy transition time, and we're looking forward to a lazy summer in greenville.

to end the post, a funny new (to me) website courtesy of angela and joseph: stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. definitely funny, so check it out.

places we like to eat: jalisco

it's been a few days since i last posted, and i really don't have anything super exciting to post about right now. so i figured i would continue with a series that i started a while back (and by series i mean posted once and hoped to post on the topic again). so, sit back relax and get ready for installment two of places we like to eat.

this time we're focusing on my favorite mexican restaurant: jalisco. it is the mexican i long for on friday nights and was a staple of our friends' diet at tech. it's a buckhead family owned place that has plaques next to each of the tables and booths in honor of the regulars.

restaurant: jalisco

food: the food is great! who knows whether this is "real" mexican, but we think it tastes good. they pretty much have the best cheese dip, and the salsa is always excellent. my favorite entree is the golden enchiladas - deep fried chicken enchiladas with lots of the shredded white cheese and sour cream on top. the double order of chimichangas is also a great date night share meal. last thing - great sweet tea.

service: as at most mexican restaurants, the service is pretty quality. chips and salsa on the table as soon as you get there, and katy and i can often eat here in under 45 minutes. you can interpret that however you want - either i eat fast or they have fast service. the hostess is always the same lady - i think she owns the place.

price: typical mexican prices, $7-15.

dress: casual

address: 2337 peachtree rd ne, atlanta, ga 30305

master (almost)

after many hours of research and writing, i have finally finished and presented my graduate thesis work...almost. my complete thesis title is: analysis of form errors in rings of non-uniform cross section due to workholding and machining loads (how's that for a mouthful?!?, and katy almost has it memorized!). i presented it to my committee this morning, and after a long presentation, a lot of questions, and a little deliberation by the committee, they told me they were happy to approve my thesis work. of course, their approval is dependent on me doing a little more work and making a few changes to my thesis. i expect no less from a bunch of phd's who would still like to remind me that it's their world and i'm just livin' in it.

all joking aside, they really did have some good suggestions about how to clarify some of my research and strengthen my conclusions. hopefully the work ahead won't take too long, and i can get my thesis completely behind me. i haven't posted in a while because i've been working on my thesis, and i probably won't post now for another couple weeks.

i'm still enjoying my job, and we're starting to get to crunch time re: looking for a new place to live. we've got several nice prospects in greenville, and we're definitely looking forward to the move. hopefully we'll have more on this front by the next time i post.

in other news, i ordered my season football tickets this week. i was pretty excited to order them for the first time (since i've always been a student before). i know that to some of you ladies it might feel like football season just ended, but i'm already ready for another exciting season. as espn would say, here's to football (esp. when you're no longer a student).

just so everyone knows...

katy's original post below was a plain picture of the clemson logo. i resisted the urge to delete it entirely; instead i chose to put a big fat "no" sign through it. that's right: no clemson on this blog!

this is the only 1-a team we allow:

reboot

once again, it has been several weeks since our last blog post. i'm sure you're not even reading this because i haven't posted in so long. i told myself this wasn't going to happen, but i guess i have gotten busy with my new job. speaking of which it's going very well.

we had an excellent january. we started a new life class at church - we're taking dave ramsey's financial peace university. it's a very practical financial class that's helping us to learn how to budget and invest better and to in general become better stewards of the blessings god has given us.

it snowed twice in january. certainly a rarity, and i'm sure most of you know this because you also live in georgia.

i've been pretty soaked up with politics for the first time in a while. throughout most of college i was pretty apathetic about politics - this probably had something to do with studying all the time and not having time to be interested. i'm not so much excited about any particular candidate, but it's really interesting to hear all of the different policy opinions, both informed and uninformed.

in other major news - we went to the ge prom last weekend. it's not really called the ge prom, but that's what everyone in the office calls it. it's a yearly event for all the salaried employees in the greenville office. everyone gets dressed up and heads out for a swanky saturday night. ge throws in food, drink, music, and dancing. this year was a mardi gras theme, complete with masquerade masks, beads, mardi gras characters, and other assorted decorations. my highlight of the evening was the jazz combo and the unending pile of jumbo boiled shrimp in the buffet line. a close second was seeing how badly some of my coworkers dance (esp. when they have drank away their inhibitions). sorry we don't have pictures because we forgot the camera.

i promise it won't be so long until my next post.

the times they are a changin'

so it's been about three or four weeks since our last post. i was hoping we wouldn't go that long between posts, but the christmas holidays made it inevitable. but a lot has changed since the last time we posted.

i'm now working for ge energy in greenville, sc. i started back on december 17, and i'm hoping it doesn't end for a while. i co-oped with ge when i was in undergrad, so it wasn't all that crazy starting a new job. i already know a lot of people, and i know the workplace, but now i have to think about all the other full time things like benefits, travel expense reports, and pensions (not so bad!), and employee evaluations (yikes!). best of all, i no longer have to work for gra pay! it is kind of different to think that my career will never end until i retire. this is in stark contrast to co-op rotations when i got to work for 12-16 weeks and then go back to the stay up late, sleep late lifestyle of a college student.

so what am i doing you ask? my official label is "engineer/technologist" (i like the sound of technologist), but really i'm a mechanical design engineer. i'm working in the shrouds group of the hot gas path component design group at a gas turbine design and manufacturing facility. katy finds the term "hot gas path" hi-larious, and maybe you do too. call me a dork, i just never thought about it being funny in all the time i've worked there. if you want to know more, feel free to ask - but i'll have to do some drawing.

katy and i will continue to live in atlanta until may when she finishes up her grad studies. i'll be working out of the office in marietta most days and out of the office in greenville every other monday and tuesday. it's definitely nice to work close to home and be able to work with my colleagues in greenville if i have any big questions. the move to greenville is definitely bittersweet. we're very happy to have gainful employment and new life challenges in a new city, but we'll also miss atlanta and our dear friends here. i've been through college, marriage, and many other growing-up experiences while living in atlanta, so it will always have a special place in my (our) hearts. still, we have some friends in and near greenville, and we'll be happy for lower rent, clean air, and less dense traffic!

in other news, i'm drawing dangerously close to the completion of my thesis. the new job has placed a damper on my desire to write in the evenings. but my advisor wants me to be done in a month or so, and i'm happy to have the accountability/motivation. i really have until sometime in april to submit the thing, but i prefer to go ahead and get it done without cutting it close.
t-minus 10 pages and counting.

we had a really good christmas break - we did christmas with my family, katy's family, and both of our paternal extended families (i had to miss out on katy's extended family due to work). highlights of the break include: me, my brother, and my dad working in the cold on my car, not figuring out what was wrong and still having to take it to the mechanic, my whole family seeing national treasure 2 together, the christmas eve service at the retirement home where katy's dad works, all of the food, and watching football with my dad and brothers. maybe katy has some others, but those are mine.

last thing in this post - funny story from christmas eve. we opened presents with katy's family on christmas eve. katy's dad received the game catch phrase. if you don't know the game, you just try to get other people playing to say the word on the screen without saying that word yourself. so anyway - katy's dad is trying desperately to get us to guess a word. his clues range from "kind of a redneck way to say chewing tobacco" and "slang for chewing tobacco" etc. after guessing, dip, snuff, chew, etc. we could never figure out the answer. here it is:


chewbacca! i think that was the hardest i've laughed in a while. anyway, i hope y'all are doing well if we haven't talked to you lately. happy new year!