My sophomore year of high school at Maconoquah High School I got to perform in a band. We were called The Flying Gimps, and we performed a whole two times that year. Maconoquah had a talent show every year called Pow Wow. Derrick Smallwood, one of the other members of the band got me a copy of Pow Wow 1993, and I've gone ahead and ripped the video to a WMV file. I've got two files, linked below. The first one is the original footage of The Flying Gimps performing Helmet's Unsung, the audio on this is horrible, but it's the original recording, I'm going to have to say the lack of quality is due to the positioning of the camera in front of the bass player's amp/speakers. http://christoc.com/video/TheFlyingGimps-Unsung-93.wmv 18.4mb The second video is what we should have sounded like! I've dubbed in the song from Helmet over the video. http://christoc.com/video/TheFlyingGimps-UnsungDubb-93.wmv 19mb UPDATE: I've moved them to a server with much better...

So now that most folks know Natalie and I got engaged last weekend, it's time to tell the story of how it happened. A little bit of info on this past weekend, Natalie's mother's birthday was on the 7th of October, so we were all headed out to So Cal for the occasion. Her parents live about 17 miles from mine, but by California's roads that's about a 45 minute drive. We, Me, Natalie, her sister, brother-in-law and neice all went out to California for the weekend, to visit with her family and mine. We planned on everyone going to my parent's house on Saturday at 6:30pm, kind of a family gathering, have both sets of parents meet, and just have dinner and hang out all evening. I however had other plans and had Mom scope out locations on the beach for me a few weeks back. The requirements were a good view of the Ocean at Sunset, easy accessibility, and somewhere that 18 people could watch, without Natalie seeing those 18 people until after I asked her to marry me. Dog Beach down in Huntington beach was the perfect location, with two seperate parking areas so that Natalie and I could park, and walk ~1/4 mile to the sand below the cliffs at the second parking area. So the plan actually was for everyone to show up at my parents house at 5pm, and head down to the beach. Natalie and I got to the house around 4:30 and picked up the Triumph so we could drive down PCH with top down, sight seeing a little was the cover I used with Natalie. I had to double check on the location mom picked out, as dad early Saturday morning said the two parking locations where too far apart, after seeing they were nice and close to each other I let mom know via a cryptic phonecall we would be in the same location as planned. Natalie and I drove around Huntington Beach a bit, stopping to watchi a few kite surfers (probably the wrong term) and then headed back up to the first Dog beach parking lot. I took her down for a stroll along the beach, all along looking ahead to see if I could see anyone at the rendevous point yet. We ended up at the point I had planned probably 5-10 minutes before everyone else showed up. Not exactly on time as I had planned, but I think that worked out best as no one was around when we were walking towards where they would all be standing, I was hoping she wouldn't see anyone before I asked her. This whole time Natalie was freezing, the weather the day before had been 83 and sunny, but the weather saturday was getting overcast and windy, probably somewhere near 55-60 with a 15-20mph wind from the ocean. Though, even with the clouds and wind, we had a pretty good view of the sunset, which I had planned everything around, a 6:19pm sunset. We stood there for what seemed like an eternity, finally the family showed up, I had to wave at them behind my back to get them down to the area near the life guard stand (stand 22) that would give them the best view. Natalie actually asked me if I was waving at someone, I said no, I was just cold and shaking out my hands. :) Once everyone was in position I suggested she put her shoes down, she'd been carrying them since we got to the sand. After a few moments, and her wiping her runny nose from the cold wind on my shirt, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She teared up, not saying a word, in shock. I had to ask her, "well, will you?" to get her to knod yes! I rose and gave her a hug and a kiss and then the crowd cheered, she turned and saw 18 people standing up on the bluff cheering for us. It took her a bit to realize it was all of our families up there watching :). Everything turned out great, Greg (my brother) and Dad had my still camera and video camera snapping and shooting away the whole time. We walked up to the bluff and took lots of photos together, with all the family in various arrangements. Afterwards we all headed to Mom and Dad's house in Long Beach for a few hours of socializing. It was a great evening, and special thanks to Mom for getting everything together...

Photos from Topeka are posted. Thanks to James Elterman for taking most of the 5th heat photos while I was...

I had an adventure to make it to and from the game on 8/25 in KC, but managed to take a few hundred photos at the game. Please feel free to give me any comments. I'm by no means a photographer, just a guy with a camera, so any tips/suggestions appreciated.You can see the photos here http://chrishammond.com/photos/old/category1068.aspxHere's my story about the darn ride back to St. Louishttp://www.chrishammond.com/archive...08/27/1502.aspxAnd then, of course my 2004 Game 4 World Series...

Andy and I made it to Denver and back. I went 1800.8 miles since I filled up with gas on Thursday night, we left Friday at 4am. The car did well, Andy was in the lead after the first day, but slipped to 2nd on the second day. I finished in 7th both days. Not a great showing for myself, though Andy picked up $200 from Kumho's contingency $$. I took ~800 photos, I'll link those later as there are some server problems right now. I also broke the Digital Rebel, so I'm headed to Best Buy this evening to see how they are going to handle the warranty on that...

Check out the great photos that Chad got of my last run at the Midiv Solo II event this weekend. Here is a link to all of the shots he took. http://www.solo2.org/gallery/albums/57.aspx And a...

If you're looking for a dressage trainer, clinics or private lessons in St. Louis Missouri and the Midwest check out Natalie Hammond (Ottiger) Dressage at NatalieHammond.com. Natalie is the premier professional dressage rider in the St. Louis area and is available for clinics and private lessons. Use the contact form on her web site for more...

Check out Gary Brolsma in this great dance video entitled Numa Numa...

Well, somehow I have gotten back into doing web sites for friends! I'm currently working on 3, already setup one for Brian, setup one for Greg but need to tweak it to give it a good look and then train him on how to use it. I've also gotta set one up for Faye, but hers will have to wait till she buys a domain name, and so I can come up with a look/feel for her site as well. I'm using the new CommunityServer release from Telligent Systems for these sites, it allows for blogs/galleries/forums all in one app, and once I get the skinning down the sites will be pretty...

You have to love Southwest Airlines! I now don't have to get to the airport near as early as originally planned. I'm taking only carry on items, and was able to check in over the internet, so I have my Group A boarding pass. SW boards by groups, A being first, B and C being latter, and since seating on Southwest is first come first serve, you need to have an A pass to get a decent seat. That generally means getting to the airport two hours early, but not if you check in online! Rock on with your bad self...

Two Days of Sunset Photos December 28th with my best friend Faye, in Huntington Beach and San Clemente December 29th in Huntington Beach I'm headed to Vacaville tomorrow morning, spend a few days up there see some old high school friends for New...

Well, this is the first post about a great weekend! Friday night Roger and I went to Mississippi Nights to see Papa Roach, Trust Co. and Chronic Future. When we got there we noticed the guys from proach were standing out on the side parking lot talking to fans. So we parked and walked around there to say hello. I said hello to Jerry, the guitar player, and told him we'd met before, at Pop's in Sauget Illinois in 2001, and that I went to school with his brother. He faintly remembered meeting me, or at least acted like he did. After saying hello to Jerry I walked over to Jacoby, the lead singer, and said hello, told him I went to high school with his wife. To which he replied, “She's here, on the bus.” So I went over and waited by the bus until they were done with their signing, which I came to find out later was an invite only signing. I guess Roger and I just looked like we belonged there? :) After the signing Jacoby got Kelly off the bus, she came out and said hello, asked what the hell I was doing in Missouri (I know, it's not the most exciting of states, but it's been home for 9 years now). Roger and I went in and watched the first  two bands, I am not much of being right up in the crowd, so at Mississippi Nights it is nice because we could grab a chair in the back and still be able to see. Later in the evening I noticed Kelly was inside watching Papa Roach play, I went up to her and another girl (kelly is in black, jennifer in the striped shirt) at the bar to say hello. We talked for probably an hour to an hour and a half. We got caught up on all sorts of things. Kelly just had her second son, 6 weeks ago, named Jagger. Her and Jennifer had flown out and met up with the guys in Wichata the night before, they were on tour with them until Monday and then were heading back to California and the kids. Jennifer also went to Vanden High School and was in our class (95). Jennifer married Tobin, the bass player for Papa Roach. Jennifer also has two kids now. All the kids (4) were staying at Kelly's mom's house while they were out on tour with the band. Kelly told me about everything that's been going on, how life still is very regular for her, even though she's married to a rock star! It was a great evening, getting caught up with Kelly and Jennifer, getting to hang out with the band members afterwards. I didn't know this, but Dave, the drummer, is married to a Tyler, as in one of Steven Tyler's daughters, Mia to be exact. Seeing things from the otherside, you realize how real people are, even though they look so far away, they are just regular people to, it's nice to see that. Best of luck to the band, and to Kelly, Jennifer and the kids. I hope to see them all again soon, who knows, maybe they will show up at our 10 year reunion next year at Vanden! Here are some photos taken that...