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 the University City portion of the Gateway Cup are posted. http://chrishammond.com/photos/2005_gateway_cup/default.aspx I only took Cat 5, Masters, and Cat 4...

Natalie Ottiger and Florian qualified for the 2005 Markel Young Horse Dressage National Championships in Lexington Kentucky in...

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...

Saw the movie last night after getting back from the Midiv Divisional #4 in Kansas City Missouri. The movie was a blast, I laughed, cried, had a good time. Okay, I didn't cry, it's not a sad movie! The divisional went great. I beat Andy again, so we now both have 2 wins, with the 5th and final divisional coming up in Topeka in two weeks. The division championship is tallyed with your best 3 of 5 scores, so I have to finish in either First, or 2nd with Andy 3rd or lower. We're off to Denver next weekend for another National Tour. That'll make 4 National Tours and 5 divisionals this year, far more than I've travelled out of town for events than any other year, but we're doing well, so we need to keep it...

Well, I made the trip back from Salina Kansas yesterday afternoon. 410 Miles in 5 hours and 10 minutes. You do the math. Stopped at the toll booth to get my ticket, then at the next booth to pay my toll, didn't have to stop for gas or any other breaks to the whole trip home. The weekend was good, hot 95-100 all 3 days, but at least Salina gets that good Kansas wind, it kept the heat bearable. I ended up winning my first Divisional of the year, and only the second win I've had over Andy this year, the first being the Walnut Ridge National Tour. We do it again this coming weekend. We'll be headed to Peru Indiana for the National Tour out at Grissom. Looking forward to making that trip again, it's quite a bit shorter than...

So far this weekend has been a good one. Last night we setup the SoloPerformance.com store at the Midnight Madness drag races out at Gateway. I shot some video of the StreetFighterz out there having a blast on their bikes. You can download it here, but be warned, it's 25megs and in Windows Media format. Today Rabid and I headed to Kansas City to watch the Cards game. It was amazing seeing so many Cardinals fans there, I  think it was easily split 50/50 between red and blue in the stadium. The ride back was wet. Somehow a big storm front totally missed KC but covered 70 the whole way back. ...

So we decided a 7am departure was a lot nicer than a 4am departure, so we headed out. Gas mileage dropped quite a bit, 19-21mpg with the trailer in tow. Stopped a few times, had lunch just south of Nashville, then I see it. The Jack Daniel's Distillery signs, I HAVE to go, I've never been, always wanted two. Two hours later we've hit the distillery and gift shop, picked up some shirts, and a newly released 1954 Belgium Gold Medal bottle. Didn't get to take the tour, will have to do that soon! Back on the road, who would have thought Chattanooga Tennessee would have a rush hour? This is some beautiful country, we both commented on living here sometime. Made it to atlanta just after 7pm, forgot about the time change. Got registered, dropped off the trailer, walked the course three times. Pretty simple course, easy to remember, but will catch you if you take it too lightly. We'll see how tomorrow...

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, I need to start generating some traffic to TwoPimps.com, so here is the official announcement and hopefully web spider link generator for TwoPimps.com! TwoPimps.com is a new project that Butcher and I are working on.We are currently working on T-Shirt designs and have one design completed and in product testing! Look for more information on TwoPimps.com...