Category: Stuff (Page 42 of 65)

I had a really good evening. I went to an Aunt/Uncle’s house I’ve not been to in a handful of years and visited with family and a cousin (who’s a Navy SEAL) who was in town. It’d been 10 years since I’d seen him. He had three of his SEAL buddies w/ him too. Interesting.

But I’ll have to give details tomorrow. I got about 2 hours of sleep last night. So I won’t tempt sleep deprivation again. I’m heading to the pillow.

Why the heck am I awake right now. I was fighting sleep at one point earlier in the night. Now I can’t find it…..

Today we had eight seniors don their caps and gowns to participate in our church’s Graduation Service. You know, the one where they get to stand in front of the church so their mom’s can cry a little and everyone can smile. We handed out some slick new Bibles and then had a lunch.

I remember this entire group as 7th graders. Now they’re all grown up and ready for the world (they think). They’ve made lots of changes, experienced lots of things, some good – some not so good. But I just hope they realize that the world can eat you up and spit you out if you don’t maneuver smartly.

My heart’s hope is that they lean on God for all of their understanding through this journey called Life.

I wasn’t necessarily opposed to us going over to Iraq. I’m not saying I was gun-ho about it either. But I could understand some of the reasonings. But what the heck are we doing now? Are we trying to set up a govt. there that can bear the pressure of the surrounding areas? Maybe that’s noble. Maybe that’s selfserving (has anyone seen gas prices?). But what the heck is going on over in the prisons and prison camps?

I saw some of the photos and the like of the prison beatings and torture. They’re beyond distasteful and sickening. The burning Q right now is whether this was the work and thought processes of a few prison guards, or was it commanded from higher up? Hmmm..

But today someone sent me a link to the video of Berg the civilian being beheaded. It was Berg saying who he was and who his fam was followed by nearly 5 minutes of Arab language saying who knows what. But then the push him to the ground and saw his head off with a long knife. I’d thought up until last night that it was a quick, swift hack with a sword. But no, it was long with screams.

There’s a few groups of people saying it might be a fake, but either way it left a way empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Now what all does this mean for the “war efforts” and “rebuilding efforts” and what else might happen?

All I know is that we, the U.S. have gotten mixed up in some bad crap and we seem to be in over our heads. I think we can recover with quality people being put in leadership over there. But we’ll see.

I’ve been waiting on saying anything about it until I could get a pic or two ready to put on here w/ it, but I figure I better go ahead and say something about it.

We got up like normal on a Saturday morning…hoping to sleep in, but not as late as we’d like since we have a 2 year old. My wife went and found her Happy Anniversary card that I’d hand made. It was plain white with black ink on it. How’s that for creative? But it was from the heart, and that’s what counts, right? I didn’t have her any big, fantastic gift though. We’d decided not to get each other “stuff” because we’re going to the beach in a few weeks and that will cost some money and plus we can probably see stuff there we’ll want to get.

We were supposed to go to The Wife’s aunt’s wedding at two in the afternoon. So we’re almost there and I realize that I’ve yet to eat lunch and will be really uncomfortable about it after the wedding. So we attempt to swing through the Wendy’s drive through quickly. But it’s not moving.Twenty minutes later we get to where the wedding is, and we’re there by 10 til….but it’s not there. Turns out the wedding it across town. So we get there late and wait outside for everyone to come out.

Turns out the wedding is in the Elvis Presley Chapel, and it was right next to the house where Elvis was born and grew up in. And to think that I’ve lived here all my life and never had seen it. Anyway, wedding over, reception over..then off to the Gum Tree Arts Festival. It wasn’t as good this year. But there was some cool stuff. There was some absolute crap too. A big splatter painting being sold for $1500. I know cars that are not worth that much but they get the job done.

Then the The Wife and I take The Kid to her (The Wife’s) parents while the two of us go to Lifeway to look at books, then we try to decide on where to eat supper. I’m not hungry at all. Not even remotely, but it’s out anniversary so I’ll eat a salad. Plus being in the sun w/o my sunglasses I’ve lost has given me a headache. But we drive by a few restaurants with hour long waits..but after almost going home, decide to go by Vanelli’s. A really good restaurant we both like but haven’t been to in forever.

While waiting for a table the owner takes our pic and The Wife tells him it’s our anniversary. I’m thinking “Free Meal”. Turns out he was thinking, “Free Picture”. But after our meal we get to go to his office to wait on the printer to spit it out. There’s a big italian looking guy from Miami in there. Turns out it’s Comedy Night and he’s the comedien. So he says, “Yo! Yous staying for da show?” So we stay for a bit, he’s funny, but a touch raw, but the 2nd hand smoke was killing us, and I had to get my pregnant wife outta there.

That’s my anniversary, w/o the pics. I’ll have a few for you soon. And we got home to a big surprise from our dog too, but more on that later.

I’m trying to set up a blog for a friend. He’s currently over in Jordon (yes, the country) on a long term mission trip, but he’s recently engaged and she’s back here in Mississippi. I’ve always wondered about what all he’s doing over there so I thought a blog would be a fantastic way for him to keep all of us over here up to date on things.

So after some encouraging, he’s going to start blogging some. I’d installed MoveableType for him, but before he got going, I scrapped it to give WordPress a try. I just got it installed last night and am going to try to tweak it some today and get it rolling for him.

I’ll show it to you on the launch.

I’ve not really posted a lot about it this season, but I’ve been a huge fan of Survivor All-Stars. Not sure if that makes me uncool or not, but it’s the truth. A friend got me pumped about the first Survivor a handful of summers ago, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

The only thing that really stinks is that they’ll have the final 2 hour episode with the one hour reunion on tonight. Sunday night. While I’m at church. So I have to record all three hours of it (even though I’m at church for the first hour) and start watching it at 10pm and be up to the wee hours of the morning. But it’s been a pretty good All Star…now if Rupert will just win it all, I’ll be happy.

This weekend is the Gum Tree Art Festival in Tupelo. There is lots of good (but expensive) art on display, some decent entertainment, and the state’s largest 10K Race. Neither The Wife or I are running in it this year, though we’ve both done it a few times, she more than I.

But our most memorable time to run the race was five years ago. We ran w/ a group of friends. It was funny that she was the first out of all of us to finish and I was the last (I won’t share my time). But later that afternoon we met up with our friends (who were our groomsmen and one of the bridesmaids) at a church in Tupelo to be united in marriage. Five years. Wow. In that time we’ve had a baby, bought a house, gotten pregnant again, and made tons of memories. If we’re honest, not every day has been a cake walk. But each day has been a step along the journey we’re travelling together.

Five years…looking forward to many more!

The other day I couldn’t send email. I’d click Send/Receive on Outlook and nothing would happen. Error message would say “couldn’t connect to server”. At first I thought, “Stinking server!” but then I realized it was for both mail servers I was getting mail from. Hmm…maybe it will work by lunch time. Lunch came and went and I didn’t have time to check mail from home, but I realized that on my work computer I could still check my home email….hmmmm.

So I try to reinstall Outlook. But my cd-rom drive wouldn’t auto play, nor run the disc when I double clicked it. I started getting concerned. I remember trying to open an attatchment from someone a few days ago. I even scanned it with Norton Anti-virus and it showed clean. BUT…it was an older version that hadn’t been updated since the free 6 month trial ran out. So I started thinking virus. I tried to get Norton Anti Virus to open up so I could pay for an update, but to no avail. It wouldn’t even open. I didn’t just double click it but clicked it about 14 times.

So I downloaded this free Virus Protection software called AVG. I heard about it from SitePointForums. You’re supposed to enter a code to get it workign right, but after the download and clicking SetUp..it never came up for me to enter the code. It was like my comptuer was halfway locked up. I could open soem programs and I could get on the WWW, but I couldn’t get email nor open any antivirus stuff. I wondered if I went to WalMart and paid $40 for a new version of NAV if I could even install it.

So I did what I usually do when I can’t figure out something..I started messing around with stuff. I found a feature on Windows XP called System Restore. I still don’t fully understand it, but I “restored my system” to what it was like about 5 days earlier. Amazingly it went back to my old wallpaper, my old screensaver. And the two versions of the AVG program were no longer on my desktop. BUT I COULD CHECK EMAIL!!!. So I downloaded the AVG again, was able to input the code…and then scanned….and scanned….and scanned, and scanned, and scanned.

It found 836 infected files on my computer. Eight hundred and thirty freaking six! Wow. But I think everything is fine now….I hope.

The Wife’s mom had The Kid today (did you get all that?)

We went to Tupelo to pick her up then out for a quick supper. One the way out of town, heading back home we drove past a few used auto dealers. We decided to pull through one lot. The Wife said, “Hey, look at that…there are some keys in the door of that car.”

Sure enough, in the door of probalby an ’02 or ’03 Nissan Altima were the keys. The same thought ran through both of our heads…”If we were the car stealing type….” But we knew better, of course. But then I started thinking, what if I owned this car lot. But I had no clue how to get in touch with the lot owner. So we keep creeping down the rows of cars. Then on the door I saw the “Emergency Number”. I think..this car is probably a $16,000 car or so…and if someone steals it this guy is in deep you know what.

So I call and get his 7 year old daughter on the phone. She gets him on the phone and I tell him I’m in his lot looking at SUV’s and there’s a Nissan here with the keys in the door. He asks me to lock it up and put the keys on top of the Coke machine. I say “Yessir” and he says thanks and hangs up. Conversation over.

So now I’m expecting one of two phone calls. One, he looks at his caller ID and returns my call and says, “Since you saved me a full car being stolen off of my lot, I’m going to sell you any SUV I own for less than what I paid for it. My heartfelt thanks goes out to you!” Either that call or one from the Police Dept saying they found my finger prints on the door handle, lock and keys of a stolen car and they want me to come to the station for some more questions….