Our New Car!

As promised, we got a new car last weekend. We wanted to get a larger vehicle that we could haul things around in. This will primarily be driven by me so it won't be traveling very far each day. It will pretty much take me to work and back which is only a 12 minute drive. Here are a couple of shots of the car.

Yes, it is a Toyota Highlander. The car is actually built on the Camry chassis so it drives much more like a car than a truck. The ride is pretty smooth. We decided to go with the limited edition as we wanted leather seats and liked all the extra features that this version comes with.

Here is a picture of the front seat. It has a push start which is a very cool feature. As cool as it is, it is also weird and a little scary. Having to turn a key all your life and switching to pressing a button is strange. However, I'm getting used to it and actually like not having to deal with keys. I do have a "key" in my pocket that you must have in order to start the car. It is really just a clicker that also opens the doors automatically when I walk up to the car. It's a completely frivolous feature but also one of the coolest. The car will also not lock if there is a key in the car so you can't lock your keys in it. It has a 6 disc changer, AM/FM, and a port for my ipod that I have to get a hookup for. There are 6 cup holders in the front seat, 4 right there and 1 each door. That is a little excessive as well but I do like having more than 2. It's nice when you have a bottle of water and then maybe a Jumbo sweet tea from Bojangles. The seats are automatic and the driver's seat has some thing that extends the seat to make it more comfortable for my long legs. I can't really explain it so you'll have to take my word for it. It gives me plenty of room. I can actually straighten out my legs in the front seat.

Here is the backseat. It has two captain's chairs that morph into a bench seat with an additional piece that is currently stored just under the back seat controls there on the right. There is a ton of room in this section as well even with the front seats all the way back.

Here is a picture from the tailgate. That thing across the back is there to hide your stuff from people looking in. It comes down and stores below that mat there and then you can pull up the third row of seats. They are not spacious but they actually aren't terrible either. Elizabeth could fit back there pretty good. So, we can haul around visitors when we have them. We can also haul around stuff like new vanities, toilets, lawnmowers and other things that were impossible in our older cars.

That was our excitement from last weekend. This weekend I took my final test for school so as long as I pass the two classes that I took this semester then I will have my masters in business degree. Now, we just need the economy to get better. I'll write next about some of my coolest classes and experiences. Have a good one!

New Bathroom!!

We recently renovated our bathroom. We did some of the work but we didn't try and handle the hard core plumbing of the job. I'm not a skilled craftsman by a long shot so we hired some help for that. However, we did some of the work and we did all of the painting. I'll take you through what we did.


The first thing that we did was take down the molding in the bathroom. Does a bathroom need molding around the middle of it? No, Elizabeth didn't think so and she took it off. She is responsible for the majority of the work in the bathroom as I was more of an assistant. So, the "we" could really be Elizabeth 90%; Ben 10%. I had a ton of school work this summer so I was doing that a lot of the time. When she took the molding down she had to put joint compound in it's place.

As you can see, we have a little bathroom but it works. We also took out both medicine cabinets that we had. There is some new drywall up there on the left of the second picture. Elizabeth and Ryan put that in place.


After that was complete, we decided to paint the bathroom before the plumber came in to install everything. Here is the primed bathroom.

We then painted the ceiling and the walls. We had some issues with the paints that we bought from Lowe's not showing up right so Elizabeth decided to do a faux finish. We have one of those downstairs in that bathroom. I think that one is very cool so I pushed for it. Elizabeth was concerned that the next people buying this house would not like it but we had no real choice since the paint did not turn out. It also helped to hide some joint compound issues. Here she is making some touch ups.





We then had the plumbers and then a handyman come in and complete the work. One of the coolest things is the seat on the toilet. It does not slam. It goes down extremely slowly. It's very cool. It's right there with tissues as the coolest things in the house that don't require batteries or power to work. Here is the finished product.

Next Week . . . A NEW CAR!

Snap Shots

As I look through the pictures on my computer I keep finding some good ones that have a good story behind them. So, this entry will include some random pictures that have a story attached to them.

So, I am starting off with this one.

This is a great picture of the Crafts and myself. This was us at the table before or after dinner I believe. They had their wedding at Olde Beau in the mountains. It was a very beautiful place. I was best man and had to come up with a speech. I had a million different stories to tell but as luck would have it. I was able to tell the story of our morning round of golf.

Olde Beau has a golf course attached to it as most nice places do. It is a challenging course in the mountains. Here is a picture of one ravine.

As you can see, there were some pretty steep hills on the course. On the hole after this one, you go a pretty steep hill. We drove up the hill then saw that our balls were down the hill so we turned and started to go down. Bear in mind, this was a 60 degree slope and I started to lose control of the cart. We start flying down the hill towards a ravine and the cart began to spin and we did a 360. I got control for a second and then it started to spin out again. At this point, Craft bailed and being a good friend yelled "BEN, JUMP!" Taking his advice, I jumped out of the cart as well. We were both in tact. As soon as I jumped out; the cart rolled to a stop under a tree just before falling over the hill into some rocks. It was pretty exciting.

Everyone then of course had a good laugh, and I had my speech. It was a fun weekend. David Carmen still owes Ondrea Van Hoever for his room if you see him.

Our next couple of pictures take place at our annual turkey bowl football game. We have gotten together for the past 6 years and celebrated Thanksgiving with a Turkey Bowl football game. It is generally my friends vs. my brother's friends who are all 5 years younger. We usually win one game and then they win one once we are tired out.

This a group shot; I'll stop with the top row going left to right. The first person is Ryan Gunyan (Liz's brother). He once played for a National Championship in flag football. He is easily one of the best players on the field even though you might not expect it. The next person is Keshaun Walters. He is Brian Snipes roommate. Then there is some weird girl touching my brother. The red hat guy is my brother. He's got good looks but I have a bigger brain. 84 is Russell. He's pretty much a wimp. Girls beat him up all the time. That's Vince Young there in the middle. Wait, my mistake that's me. I wear a Young jersey because his game is almost as good as mine. Next is the Kipke brothers; Mike and Jamie. Mike is a stud in the Turkey bowl but he tends to fall apart for the Xmas bowl. Jamie is a big dude that most people get out of the way for. There on the end is Forest.

The lower row is: Mike Wiggins; he is Andrew's buddy that travels around and dates supermodels. He lives pretty well. Next to him is Sniper. He is a world renown pet enthusiast. The next guy is a douche. I don't know his name but I know that I don't like him. The next guy is Craft, you should no him now. Next is Peter Gunyan, Liz's other brother. He's 17 and his brain is mush right now according to all the books that I have read this summer. Next to him is little Wiggins and Jimmy Mullins. Jimmy was once quoted in the local news paper after beating Greensboro Day in high school lacrosse. He said "We don't like them public school types."

Below is an American Hero:

If you look closely you can see Tyler Hansbrough on the line getting ready to shoot some free throws. We went to Chapel Hill for New Year's Eve last year and we took in a game which was a lot of fun. We got to see the team beat Valpo. I love Tyler. He is my favorite UNC player of all time. I just hope that he can win at Duke again this year so that we can call it Hansbrough Indoor Stadium forever.

Roy will have a lot of pressure on himself this year to add to the arena.

Where we're going we don't need roads . . .

We are taking another trip this week. This time we are headed to Bristol, TN. If you don't know why Bristol is not a great town then you've never been there for a race. It's easily the best NASCAR race of the season mainly because there are a lot of wrecks. Everyone likes a good wreck as long as nobody gets hurts of course. So, I'll take you on our last trip to Bristol because I have some pictures which is key for everyone. Pictures make everything better unless you did something illegal.


I have taken 3 trips to Bristol. One with the Wizard, Drew, Dad, and myself which was a lot of fun and worked out very similar to the story you're about to be told except Russell is subbed in for the Wizard. The Wizard has his own page which I may try and link to this one if I can. Anyway, we went back a year later and got to go to the luxury suite; which Mom decided to go to because girls like luxury suites. It was also fun but we all decided that outside is better because you can hear the cars better which is really the coolest thing about the race.


So, the trip starts out at 8 AM leaving from G-town on the way over the Bristol. It takes about 3 hours maybe 3.5 but I can't remember. You try to get there around 11/12 so that you can park and hang out until a couple hours before race time. We always park at the same church because you can hang out in gym which has AC and play some hoops in their gym all for $10. It's very nice. It's also a good place to eat snacks which must include sweet nuts. This trip Russ and Dad thought that it would be a great idea to sell some Goodyear posters to people as we walked up.

As nice as they are; people don't want to carry around a poster so they donated them to the church.



It was a hot August day and we walked the mile up to the track to do some of the free tent stuff that is found around the track.

We were were walking around outside and were amazed to find out that they had created a monument to the Allison family. It is true that we are a great clan but this honor was unexpected. Here we are at the monument. It's nice to know that the people at Bristol Motor Speedway love us so much.



We then went in and experienced our first little hiccup with our seats. We thought that we were near the top which is where we sat the first time that we arrived. If you don't know, NASCAR seats are better the further away you are. The first few rows are called the "chicken bone" section because people throw their chicken bones on you from above.



So, we thought that we were sitting here. Nice high status area.

It turns out that we were wrong and were sitting here.

If you can't tell that's row 6. Yes, the heart of the "chicken bone" section. It turned out to be fine but I wasn't happy when we got there. You could actually see the whole track from these seats which was surprising as you normally can't see much this close. You get a different type of fan when you are this close though. One fan that we got to see a lot of was this guy.

He didn't really know where he was all night. I'm not sure where his tickets were actually but we were only with him during the opening ceremonies. He did pop up in every section throughout the night much like a whack a mole and constantly went back to the concourse.

Also, on this night, we broke a world-record. Bristol seats 230K I think. But we were part of the biggest fan participation event ever! This is Russ and our friend participating in that event. You are supposed to hold it like Russ not the other guy. Here is what it looked it.

Our friend there didn't quite understand how to do it.

This is just a cool parachute guy.

We stayed for the whole race which was nice. It ended about 11:30 and there weren't near as many wrecks as usual which was disappointing but it was still a good time.

On they way back, we found another problem with our seats. We were all hearing impaired. Andrew and I were not too bad because I got ear plugs. Dad however, could not hear a thing. I drove back and Andrew road upfront to keep me awake and Dad and Russ were in the back. We would keep talking about the race and other things and ask Dad what he thought . . . . . . . . . nothing. We would then laugh because he couldn't hear a word that we were saying and it became a joke the rest of the way.

One of us: Hey Dad . . . Nothing; We would laugh hysterically. Dad can still hear; the loss was just for the ride home and for a couple weeks after the race.

Good Times.

I asked Dad and Andrew to rate the experience.

Until Next time . . .