wesley evans dot net

Remember the victims….

Wesley — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:04:06 +0000

It saddened me greatly to hear about the recent shootings at Virginia Tech. The New York Times put up an excellent page to help remember the victims. Please visit this page and take a few minutes with me to remember those who lost their lives needlessly and pray for their families in this difficult time.

If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!

Wesley — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 14:14:33 +0000

This past Friday, we went to see Journey to Skye: The Scottish Festival at the Toyota Center. It’s a Scottish music and dance show featuring the current and five-time Juvenile World Champion St. Thomas’ Pipe Band. Now, I’m not normally one to go to see a bagpipe concert, but I’ll try anything once. I’m glad we went, because I really enjoyed it! The bagpipes were terrific and were accompanied by an outstanding drum-line. I almost hated to see it end. I wasn’t a huge fan of the dancing, but that’s just me. If you ever get a chance to see something like this, don’t pass it up, it’s really something unique and fun and you need to see it at least once.

The History Channel Up Close

Wesley — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 21:41:47 +0000

When I went home last Christmas, my mom told me about some papers they found detailing my grandfather’s (who passed away when I was very young) first-hand account of the sinking of the ship he was on in WWII. He was a Captain in the US Army Veterinary Corps, and was involved in the transport of mules from Australia. His ship was sunk by an enemy submarine off the coast of New Caledonia, killing all of the animals on board. The book Mules Go to War was written about the sinking but it’s out of print and difficult to find, however, my mom has a copy that was signed by the author for my grandfather. Something like this really brings WWII history to life for me when I realize that it happened to someone in my own family. The following is an outtake from my grandfather’s report:

At 11:15 P.M. (ship’s time) July 25, 1942, the “Tjinegara” was struck by two torpedoes on the port side near the deep tanks or in No. 4 hatch. The ship almost immediately listed very heavily to the starboard side. We were then some seventy miles off the coast of New Caledonia. The alarm bells were ringing and there was quite a bit of confusion in getting to the life boats. In the rooms and hallways in the lower decks there was quite a lot of brownish smoke. The horses were panicky and neighing very loud, probably associating the smoke with fire, but apparently there was no fire on the ship. The two lifeboats on the starboard side and the two on the stern were the first to be lowered. The two on the port side were last. Due to the starboard list of the ship, they had to be pried over the gangplank. Every member of the crew was safely removed from the ship. Three of the horses escaped through the torpedo hold in #4 hatch and could be heard swimming and nickering for approximately one hour. At approximately 1:15 A.M. July 26, 1942, or about two hours after the first two torpedoes struck, the third one struck in the starboard side somewhere forward. In twenty minutes the Tjinegara started down stern first. Several S.O.S. messages had been sent out before the ship was abandoned. Some five minutes before the ship sunk a PBY Cataline plane came over in search of the submarine, but by that time it had disappeared. The plane signaled that a rescue boat was on the way. The first four life boats were picked up about 10:30 A.M. July 26, 1942 and put ashore in Noumea, New Caledonia. The last two lifeboats were picked up at 8:30 P.M. that night by the U.S.S. Worden, a Navy destroyer.

There’s no place like home

Wesley — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:09:40 +0000

This past weekend, a tornado hit my parents’ neighborhood. Fortunately, my family is fine and they had no damage, but many other people in the area were not so lucky. It’s just scary when a storm, even on such a small scale, can hit so fiercely that close to home. Sadly, as I don’t tend to pay much attention to the news, I didn’t even know about it until my dad called to tell me they were okay.

I’ll be going there to visit for Easter, and hopefully by then everyone will have had a chance to rebuild at least a little bit. I’m just thankful my family is okay, and my best wishes go out to all those who were affected.

Go Astros!

Wesley — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:25:37 +0000

I went to two Astros games this weekend to watch them sweep the Cardinals! Although I had standing room only tickets for the Sunday game, it was worth it to see what could be Roger Clemens’ last game at Minute Maid Park. But after last night’s win, Houston is within 1 1/2 games of the NL Central lead. Go Astros!!

[Update, Sep 29th] - The Astros are now only a 1/2 game behind, just a little more to go!
[Update, Oct 1st] - It’s all over for the Astros now. They didn’t make it to the postseason, but they put up a great fight and we loved watching them try. Thanks for a great season guys!!!

SHOUTcast Sidebar Widget

Wesley — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:35:37 +0000

I have written a SHOUTcast Sidebar Widget for WordPress and have made it available for download. You can see it in action on the sidebar. It only requires the URL of the SHOUTcast server to get started, and is fully customizable through HTML templates. Try it out and let me know if you find it useful.

It’s no fun being sick

Wesley — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:55:28 +0000

Last Friday, just as I was getting ready to leave work, I starting coming down with a fever. (Why couldn’t this happen on a Monday instead?) Well, I was in bed most of the weekend, and I’m just now starting to feel 100%. I even had to miss the free Hootie and the Blowfish concert that my friends got to go to. I still don’t know what caused it because I didn’t have any other symptoms and it went away with just Advil and Tylenol. It may always be a mystery, but I am just happy it’s all over!

Congratulations Pam & Dave!!!

Wesley — Sun, 14 May 2006 04:04:59 +0000

My sister Pam just got married today! Congratulations to you and your new husband Dave. I wish you both many years of happiness. You can find the pictures and videos I took here.

Go Speed Racer, Go!

Wesley — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 05:49:28 +0000

The results from the Rod Ryan Morning Wood Derby are in! My “Nullified.Net” car finished 45th out of 81 racers with an average time of 2.646 seconds per race. I know, 45th isn’t great and my car wasn’t exactly the best thing to look at. I just didn’t start building it soon enough, and ran out of time in the end. Okay, enough with the excuses. At least it was still fun building and racing. Next year, I’ll know how to do it right!

What I did on my Christmas vacation…

Wesley — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 19:18:29 +0000

Wow, 2006 is here already! I’ve been off from work for about 3 weeks now for my Christmas vacation so I’ve been dreading coming back to work today. What did I accomplish in my time off? Well, I learned that deer burgers taste pretty darn good! I learned that making your own Hard Apple Cider is alot harder to get right than I thought. I really enjoyed seeing Fun with Dick and Jane while I suffered through the overrated Napoleon Dynamite. I learned just how bad Houston’s NFL team actually is. Like most people, I did NOT buy an XBOX 360. I enjoyed time with friends & family, playing lots of trivia, but only playing poker once! I debated the point of blogging, thus inspiring this post. And most importantly, I avoided thinking about work until today. Have a great 2006 everybody!