Friday’s Feast

Appetizer
Name 3 cosmetics/toiletries that you use on a daily basis.
Deodarant (Old Spice High Endurance), AquaFresh toothpaste, and whatever shampoo The Wife has bought lately.

Soup
Approximately how much exercise do you get per week, and what type of exercise is it (walking, running, swimming, etc.)?
I aim for about four days of exercising. Be it lifting weights or running or something. Don’t always get it though.

Salad
Write a sentence including your favorite color and your favorite food.
I love eating chocolate chip cookies while wearing a maroon shirt.

Main Course
What famous person/celebrity do you think you look like?
The godzilla.

Dessert
Name 2 simple things that never fail to make you happy.
My daughter’s laugh. Snuggling w/ The Wife.

Okay, so I completely redid my blogroll down there to the left. It is supposed to be a list of blogs that I visit regularly. But some of the old ones on it had gotten a bit outdated or the links didn’t work or whatever. So I’ll just say go and check it out and click around on the new ones. Some are the same.

All this is done with the fact that I’ll probably be changing to WordPress and stop using MovableType soon. We’ll see how all that works out. I just hope to be able to maintain some of the same desing I’m currently using.

Technology.

I guess I like Caller ID. It’s handy to come home and check the Caller ID and see who’s called you since you’ve been gone. But do you automatically call them back even if they didn’t leave a message on the machine? I don’t. I don’t because if I call someone and don’t leave a message I don’t expect them to call me back.

People have called me and said, “Hey!” I respond with a hey of my own. “I saw where you called me. What did you want?” I think that’s usually a bit rude. If I’d have wanted you to call back…I would have left a message like you asked me to do on the machine.

I’ve also had people call me and say, “Why didn’t you call me back yesterday? Did you not see my number on Caller ID?” What the heck? Did they leave a message asking me to call them back? Noooooo.

As cool as Caller ID is, I’m sure glad it wasn’t around when I was a teen. I mean, you may be trying to call a girl…but she’s not home. So back then you could call every 5 minutes and hope to catch her when she comes in. But if you did that now, your phone number would show up on her Caller ID 27 times since lunch. That’s no good. That scares them away.

OR…with Caller ID now…maybe she really is home, but doesn’t want to take a call from you because she’s hoping a cooler guy will call and ask her to the game. So you try to Star 67 your call. But any self respecting girl knows not to answer a call from “Caller Unavailable”. And most have figured out that you can Star 77 your phone and it automatically blocks those anyhow.

Cell phones use to be behind the times with Caller ID, but now they’ve caught up as well. Or at least you can see the # calling you. Pretty soon they’ll have the names on them too.

Technology is a good thing (I say as I type on a computer to post to the internet), but it can complicate things sometimes as well.

We went looking at houses again yesterday. Better luck this time. Something might have to do with the fact that we’re looking up a little bit. Meaning that we’ve looked a little more in a high pricing range. But we’d really have to figure things out with finances and how things would settle out at the end of the month, dollars and cents wise. But we also looked at an older home that would need a little work (more cosmetic than anything structural) to get it where we’d want it, but it’s a lower price and a nice neighborhood with a lake right across the street. It has a nice back yard and some expansion potantial if you ever wanted to add on.

We had two more showings of our own house. Still some nibbles, but no hard bites. But we had a roofer come and start cleaning our slate tile roof. It’s messy. A little water gets up into the attic if you’re not really careful. So he put a lot of plastic up in the attic to catch some of the drips where the water sometimes gets shot straight up under the tiles w/ the pressure washer.

The roofer leaves and his #2 guy is finishing up. I thought he was done. Cleaned off the patio and all. Then moves around to the other side of the house and starts spraying. It’s at a harsh angle. And it’s over a part of the attic that’s uncovered w/ plastic. I start to worry. Then my worries are confirmed when red water starts streaming from the heating/cooling vent in our ceiling. My 38.5 month pregant wife runs out side screaming at the guy to stop. Then a sizable water spots appears on my bedroom ceiling. Not good.

The main guy is supposed to come back tomorrow (Monday) to finish up and see about it all. He said he’d fix everything. But I crawled up there last night and there’s lots of damp very wet insulation above our bedroom. So I’m thinking that might need to be replaced too.

Yes, The Wife is now 8 days away from due date and we went on a road trip yesterday. We didn’t ask the Doc about it before hand because we knew he’d strongly advise against it. But oh well. Baby is a touch smaller than last time at this point. So I don’t know if that means a smaller baby or more distant due date. We’ll see. The Doc said he would induce next Thursday if we wanted. We don’t want to.

When the apple is ripe, it will fall from the tree.

Bush won. Is anyone really surprised? I think a lot of people are. I stayed up late Tuesday night trying to see what the heck would happen with Ohio. It’s amazing when the entire election seems to come down on one state. But Pennsylvania was called for Kerry much earlier and had less of a margin than Ohio. The networks seem a little screwy sometimes. But it’s all to be expected I guess.

But I was glad that Kerry didn’t drag things out for ever and ever. That would have been horrible. But I guess Michael Moore has enough fodder for a new movie or two. Someone said he was doing a movie on the pharmacutical industry or something. Someone’s also made a movie called FarenHYPE/911. I might actually check that one out.

I’m still amazed by my short, short lines to vote. There were probably 8-14 booths where I was voting. I bet they had people walk up and vote w/ no wait all day. Then I hear about the college campus in Ohio where there were 2 booths for over 3000 students. That’s plain nuts.

What will the country do now? To be honest, sometimes I don’t think it really matters who we elect. From watching tv shows and doing some reading and other stuff. Sometimes you wonder if it’s actually the president who pulls the strings on the country, of if he’s got some folks who are pulling his strings…..

Today was my 4th time to vote for president. Same thing every time. Walk in, say your name, sign your name, get your sheet and go stand in the booth. Mark your marks then slip it in the box.

There were no people outside harrassing me. No one to influence my voting. No one taking my picture or offering me a ride or popping my tires.

Oh well.

I’m up late right now. But after I go to sleep, wake up, eat, shower, and take care of morning business….I shall vote.

For who? Dunno yet. But I hope to have a normal experience. And why wouldn’t I?

We shall see!

I went down for the church’s Fall Retreat. Friday night was just the college students and seniors in high school. They were to be the leaders for the week. There were only about 18 or so of us there the first night. It was good to get to meet them and get to know them a little better. I was pretty surprised with the maturity of a lot of them. Suprised and encouraged. We stayed up a while getting some things ready and set up for the weekend. Also made out the schedule for the Tower of Power. The Tower was a deer stand in a tree with a mic and speakers. Scripture was read 24/7 from up there starting in Genesis. It was to be a blessing on the whole weekend to have God’s word read over them.

I started getting a headache at some point in the night. I had no Tylonol or Advil, so I tried to guzzle Coke to caffinate my headache. Didn’t work. So later I go to bed with a headache. That’s usually the best headache medicine….sleep. But it won’t let me go to sleep. I get up at 3:30 going to the camp office and cafferteria looking for pain killer. I think about driving to a store, but I don’t really know where I am and not sure where the nearest store is, much less one that’s open at 3:45 am.

I get some Orbit gum, sit on the front porch of my cabin for a bit and decide to go lay back down. Yatzee!!! I go to sleep. I get miniscule sleep and feel great! God is good.

The kids get there the next day and there are a few that I recognize and remember. But I’m meeting kids left and right and not remembering names. The speaker and worship leader do their thing and I’m still meeting people left and right. Lunch, afternoon game, my hour to read in the Tower of Power, games, session, supper, then I have to leave.

But it was a good weekend. I think it was a great opportunity to break some ice. That way I don’t show up in December and no one knows me and I know no one. Sure, there are still tons of people to meet and get to know.

Now we gotta find a house! Wait, I mean we gotta sell a house!

Oh, and the Dogs one 2 in a row!

Seems the guy is on vacation or something.

But since there’s no aimless stuff to post today, I’ll pimp a few friends’ blogs today. I’ll start trying to do that a little more here and there. If you read this and don’t see your blog listed, have patience. I don’t want to put them all up here at once.

Russ & Anna’s Wedding Blog I’ve known Russ for a long while thanks to Camp Lake Stephens. There was a time when I was “old” and he was “young”. Now we’re both in the “older” bracket. Anyhow, he’s getting married to Anna. She’s a cool girl too. Russ told me that he and Anna would read my blog pretty often, and I tried to encourage them to make a blog for their wedding preperations. He kept dodging it saying it was probably too complicated. I wouldn’t give up and finally walked him through it. Now he’s been a blog-evangelist of sorts. Russ is a UTenn fan who went to UMiss. But he’s a UMem fan in basketball. Anna is a UMiss fan who went to UMiss. They’re interesting.

I Wish I Was At The Beach is another friend from Camp Lake Stephens. Lyle is one of the more unique people I know. He’s so freaking passionate about Rebel sports, but one of the most pragmatic Rebel fans I know. He won’t blow any smoke up someone’s butt with red/blue glasses on. He’ll call it as he sees it. Lyle is someone who I don’t see very often, but after I’ve been around him I always realize I should try to hang out with him a little more. One of the funniest people I know.

We’ve gotten a few nibbles on our house, but not good bites. We thought we might have had one last week, but it fell off the hook or something. Maybe they’ll come back. But in the meantime, we’re praying for a buyer.

We’re also praying for a house to buy. We may end up renting for a bit down there. Dunno yet. But we’ll keep looking and keeping our eyes/ears open. I’m going down for a weekend retreat with the new youth group tomorrow. Get to know a bunch of the kids ahead of time hopefully. There’s always going to be that initial “Do they think I’m a dork or do they at least think I’m semi-cool?” feeling. Hopefully be meeting a few of them before my work actually begins will help the transition.

I’ve also got to film part of a video to be used in a larger video for a Christmas Break trip I’m going on with the church down there. It was suppposed to be something cool with lots of pre-planning. But I’m a last minute addition, so the idea is to ramp up the “dork-factor” for laughs and to show that I’m not affraid to make fun of myself…or something to that effect.

Oh, and my house stinks. BAD! My wife made brownies for me. Took them out of the oven and set them on the stove. She also prepared supper. All I had to do was cook it. So after she went to work I put the dish in the oven, fired it up, and put some water on to boil (to steam some brocolli). I go to the living room. Next thing I know the kitchen is filled with thick, billowing smoke. Ends up I turned on the wrong stove eye. So the brownies are resting on a red hot eye and mini-Mt. St. Helens has errupted in my kitchen.

Now the whole house smells like burnt/scorched/fried/toasted brownies…it’s baaaad.