For those of you that do not know what Memorial day is, it’s a day that the US remembers our men and women in the Military that died fighting for our country and other countries. I would like to say to all of the Veterans out there, I truly appreciate what you have done for everyone, thank you.

This whole weekend was beautiful; Maine had 80 degree weather all day long. It’s now Monday evening and the sun is starting to hide behind the clouds. I’m outside writing this entry while my Greenhouse grinders are cooking on the grill.

Saturday morning I worked on Ogden2k, I changed the look so that the colors are more consistent. I change the blog file structure around by tweaking the .htaccess file using mod_rewrite, this should allow for better search indexing. I also added a new feature named tags, basically what I can do with this is that I can assign multiple tags (keywords) to each entry I write, and you the reader can search by tags. If you enjoy reading about the food that I cook, you can select the “cooking” tag. Later in the afternoon I went grocery shopping and than relaxed at home.

On Sunday I went to church, Stan (our pastor) was not there, he took a vacation so Mark, the assistant pastor filled in. He talked about temptation and trials which was very good- I am trying to apply what he taught to my life. I headed up to Dexter to visit with my grandparents. We barbecued chicken and corn for dinner, after eating we sat outside in the shade because it was so nice out. Their cat, “Mister”, attempted to catch a Sparrow watching her babies in a bird house. I watched Munich when I got home, the movie is very good. I’m not sure how accurate it is compared to the real-life events that happened back in the 70’s, but from what I’ve read it looks to be accurate.

I caught up on some sleep today and woke up very refreshed. I love waking up to a nice cool morning breeze filled with the smell of Lilacs. I had picked the purple lilacs at my grandmothers on Sunday. Their sweet smell always reminds me of spring when my mother would have at least three bouquets of Lilacs around the house. I have wanted to make more photo albums, so I purchased one of those albums that peel back a clear sheet that allows you to add any size photo that you want. I purchased a new photo collage that holds 6 photos. I will be filling up both once Mom sends me copies of the photos she has. I finished up another job request from one of my clients today; they needed a “click tracking” application that would monitor the CTR of the ads they host on their message board. I installed phpAdsNew which is a very robust system. I re-arranged my second bedroom; it contains all of my servers and lab-environment equipment. It’s much neater now as the two wire shelves are side-by-side with the computers aligned beside the shelves. A co-worker mounted an old LCD monitor to a new LCD foot “base” for me last week so I can use it in my lab.

When mom was up last week for Mother’s day I purchased the book in my title to compliment the book mom gave me for last Christmas, A man, a can, a plan. I decided to try out one of their recipes on this patchy & cool day. The name is “Greenhouse Grinder”, it consists sour dough crusty bread, pesto, caponata, tomato and mushrooms. Top it with butter and grill it for 5+ minutes. It was very filling. A few nights ago I made a spicy burger consisting of Angus hamburger (80/20) mixed with pepper, crushed red peppers seasoning, A-1 steak sauce, topped with American cheese, honey mustard, sweet pickles (to counter the spice) and tomato. I had a chocolate and banana smoothie to wash it down.

My Sunday school class at Cornerstone Baptist starting on the “The way of the Master” study plan, it basically gives you the knowledge and courage to witness to others. I’m really excited about it and hope that I will be able to use whatever I learn in class.

Obligatory photos: Spicy burger | Greenhouse Grinder

My mother had been planning on coming up for Mother’s day weekend to visit me and her parents. Her parents did not know she was coming up visit as it was a surprise. Her flight was due to arrive at 11AM but actually got in twelve hours later due to massive fog in Boston. I picked her up at Bangor International and we headed home.

The next morning we went to her parent’s house in Dexter. She went up the stairs and said, “I’m here to pick up my donut cutter”. My grandmother’s jaw looked like it hit the floor she was so surprised. We visited for awhile and headed to Bangor to do a little shopping. We went to the Orono Bog Boardwalk but arrived too late. We went home and watched Pirates of the Caribbean.

The next day we got up early to go to Denny’s for breakfast, which was packed due to it being Mother’s Day. After we ate we attended Church than proceeded to my grandparent’s for dinner. My grandparents finally got a DVD player; it’s one of the VHS / DVD combo players. Their children had converted all of their home videos to DVD for them and the rest of the family. After a few hours of visiting we dropped off some candies at Jack’s mother’s apartment and went shopping at the mall.

On Monday we went back to the boardwalk, there were a lot of people there. The walk was very interesting; I learnt that Pitcher plants and Sundew plants actually grew in the wild in Maine.

Mom went home early Tuesday morning with only a few delays in Bangor due to the weather. The only days we had rain was Friday and Tuesday which worked out well. I had a very good time with her this past weekend.

It’s intriguing how certain things will trigger certain memories from your past; scents, certain phrases, music, settings, etc. This morning I went through some of my things and found a CD I had purchased at least 11 years ago, Ace of Base. I decided to play it and when the player played one of the songs I remembered a certain day in my life that I had experienced with my brother. We were listening to this song on our mother’s stereo while playing Donkey Kong Country for Super Nintendo; I can even remember the level we were playing. I miss him so much, I always wonder what my life would be like if he were still alive. I’m sure so many things would be different, he always said that wherever I moved he would live right beside me… at the time I hated that idea, now I think that we would be room-mates.

I do find that it’s very comforting that he is saved and in Heaven, so at least one day I will see him again.