IS the Customer Always Right?

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

2011-05-24T04:48:00.003-05:00

Ok, so it's been like 16 months since I wrote a post. Embarrassing? Yeah a little. Tons of things have changed. Work is still going great, loving the job. Melissa is still heavily involved with MOPS and bible study. Katelyn is 3 and Ember will be 2 this September. We're still in an apartment, but we moved one building down to get a better floor plan. Moving is so much easier when you can just carry half of your crap over instead of loading everything in a grossly overpriced van that's been driven by half the people in your zip code. That being said, the move was not completely pain free, but we do have some awesome friends that were willing to spend (waste?) their evenings assisting us. I still have a couple boxes to empty. Yuck. On the bright side, if I never empty the boxes, I can always know where those certain items are.

So Osama Bin Laden got killed by US forces the other day. That was crazy. I was sitting in Chili's with a friend from small group when CNN made a special report, and Twitter exploded. Amazing and sad how few people quote Scripture on a daily basis, and how many people are suddenly able to recall tons of verses when it fits with their opinion on the matter of death. Am I glad he's dead? You bet. Am I celebrating his eternal torment and damnation? Absolutely not. He is not receiving any worse than you or I deserve, save for God's grace. I am thrilled that no one else can be hurt by such an evil man. Certainly another or ten will rise up in his place, but I believe the world is a better place without the man.

Anywho, so Ember is looking like such a toddler. She is still a shrimp, but look at her parents. I think Melissa was under 5 foot until she turned 24 :). Ok not that bad. Ember is becoming her own person more and more each day, but still so affected by her big sister. If Katelyn can do it, or can get away with it, Ember must try. That gets her in trouble more than she appreciates, but it's kinda cute, too. Katelyn is getting bigger each day as well. We were talking the girls through their ages and birthdays before dinner, and just saying that Katelyn's next birthday would be her fourth just blew me away. It goes way too fast. I still remember very vividly the day we brought her home from the hospital. Crazy.

It's 5:08 AM while I write this. Super early in the morning, or super late to be staying awake. The latter is my case today. Extra job from midnight to 6 AM once a week. Stinks the worst in the last hour (now), but then I head to the station while trying not to crash from exhaustion, and sleep for a few hours. Not even sure why I felt compelled to compose...curious :)

Have you ever watched anyone compete in the Ironman? I worked security for the event this past weekend in the Woodlands. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen. These people have to train for at least a year prior to the event, and at least twenty hours per week. Granted, first prize wins $100K, but that's a lot of effort for a 1/2500 chance at a chunk of cash. The swimming portion commenced around 6:50 AM, and the last runner passed my post at 1100 PM. Can you imagine swimming 2.4 miles and then hopping on a bicycle to Huntsville and back? Oh yeah, and then why don't you run a 26.2 mile marathon before catching your breath. These people are crazy. It must be such an amazing feeling to cross the finish line after a a day like that. Personally I don't think I could give up cheese burgers just to swim/bike/run that much.

I killed a Copperhead snake while working at the Ironman! Two different runners alerted us to a snake relaxing on the pathway, but on the first search we couldn't locate anything. The second look a few minutes later was more productive. I was just going to move the snake to a safer place across the street, but he tried to bite me. Two strikes from the expandable baton later, the snake hissed his last. Wasn't that big for a copperhead, but certainly big enough to cause a problem.

So this typing isn't helping me stay awake like I hoped it would. I'm getting worried about typing gibberish, so I'm going. Write more later.

$

Been a while huh?

2010-01-13T19:06:00.002-06:00

Good grief...I can't even remember the last time I posted anything on this site. Time has been flying by the last few months. Ember was born in September and She's already 4 months old. I can't believe it sometimes. The children grow up so fast. Katelyn is 21 months - 2 years old in April. She's already acting like a two year-old... having to pick a few battles. Melissa is starting up MOPS again this week. She's a DGL I think - Discussion Group Leader. She's really excited about that. They do a lot of crafts and have some really good talks. Plus it's a great chance for her to have some interaction with people other than me.

We celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary last month. Talk about time flying by. I met melissa in August of 2001. We will have known each other for nine years this summer. That's just crazy. On one hand it feels like we just met and have barely spent any amount of time together. On the other hand, I have to work to remember a time without her. Childhood wasn't that exciting I guess. :)

Work has been going well. Been working a lot this past month. I have set a personal goal for my self in January: see how many people I can arrest in 30 days. Ridiculous right? Hey, gotta have some goals. You could also see it as me trying to stop/prevent as many crimes as possible (and hey, I am!). Still haven't found any more permanent extra jobs, but I'm sure something will come along when the time is right.

Just felt like posting something. Hope things are going well for you.

Later,

Why does every post need a title??

2009-01-11T06:25:00.002-06:00

Sup people. I haven't posted since November 1 of last year. that's really sad. oh well. It's currently 6:45 am on January 11, 2009. I've been up since 4pm yesterday. I know, 4pm. Weird time to wake up. Especially since I went to bed early yesterday. I got off work early, so i was able to go to be at like 5am. that's really early. so yeah, i slept for 11 hours. that's the longest i've slept in a very long time.

To explain the bizarre sleeping times, I've been working night shift for the past two weeks now, and I have one more week to go before I can switch over to Evening Shift. That will either be 2pm - 10pm or 3pm - 11pm. Again, not entirely normal shifts, but whatever.

So yeah, I did graduate from the Houston Police Academy, and yes, I am a police officer now. It's been what, a month and a half since graduation? It's awesome, let me just say that right now. I love putting on the uniform, I LOVE getting to wear a gun to work, that's just plain cool. It's an amazing job. I never understood the amount of power that cops have. It's crazy, we have the only job in the world where we can take away a person's freedom of movement. That is a ridiculous amount of power. I'm not saying the job shouldn't be there, it's just a responsibility that cannot be taken lightly. My first couple weeks I had a really hard time stepping into that role, because it's not normal for me to walk into a stranger's house and start asking very personal pointed questions. And it's also not normal to walk into a building and have everybody start staring at you just because of what you're wearing. People are intimidated by the uniform and the position the badge represents. It's... pick a word, bizarre, strange, freaky, weird, abnormal, unsettling. But it's still a good job. those are just some of the things that i thought about a lot my first couple weeks on the job.

If you don't mind, I'm just gonna fill you in on a few things that happened over the past few weeks since it's been such a long time since i last posted.

Day shift was really fun. you work either 6am - 2pm or 7am - 3pm. that second shift is the one i had and it's awesome. lots of stuff to do all shift; never a dull moment. we covered a lot of accidents for some reason, and day shift gets a lot of burglary calls. people show up to work and find the place has been burglarized. not a great start to their morning. that's another thing i forgot to mention in my last mini-soapbox. people are NEVER happy to see you. that's something i had to get used to. people don't want to have to call the cops, and that's understandable, because having to call the cops usually mean something bad has happened. i've been to burglaries, assaults, robbery's, thefts, accidents, deaths (those suck), stabbings, forgeries, and i have pulled over countless people for traffic violations. in all those scenes, not one person has said "boy am i happy to see you." NOTE: I'm not surprised at this, I'm just saying.

Night shift has been good, but there are a lot of slow times. for example, it seems that even the criminals go to sleep around 3 am. this means, there's noooooothing going on. it also means if you're driving around at 3 am, i'm gonna figure out why. who the heck is driving around at 3 am?? OK, other than the cops.

So Katelyn is, gosh, 9 months old. she is crawling everywhere, and pulling herself up on everything she can reach. she'll be walking before we know it. she has three teeth now, and three more working their way in. she's so amazing. i can't believe how wonderful parenthood is. there are few better feelings in the world that coming home after a hard day and seeing your child smile at you. her face lights up so bright every time i come home. i love it. to make it even better, Melissa is pregnant, so we have another baby on the way. YAY!! another wonderful bundle of joy. I love kids.

Melissa and I celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary last month, that was really cool. we went on a double date with James and Lynne. we went to dinner at Vic & Anthony's Steak House. NOTE: don't go there without a LOT of money. But hey, it was reeeaaally good steak. best I've ever had. Then we went to see the Nutcracker ballet. that was pretty cool. we had orchestra-ish seats that were really really close to the stage, so that was neat also. we then spent the evening at the Hilton Americas hotel downtown. that's another place to go only with a lot of money. it was money well spent, but probably won't be happening for a while. That was a great evening.

what's new with you?? seriously, leave a comment and tell me something that's new with you. doesn't have to be completely exciting, just something. i gotta go get ready for church.

Later,

Hello you happy peoples...

2008-11-01T18:14:00.004-05:00

My long lost (or not) friends! How are you all doing? It's been some time since I last blogged. I do apologize for leaving such a crucial part of your life empty for so long. Truly, I should not have waited so long. What's happened since I last got on here? Let's see...

It's been six weeks since my last post. Ike had just gone away and the city looked like crap. Sadly, there are still a whole bunch of places even around here that still look like crap. There are people on Eldridge Pkwy just today getting their fences replaced. Probably just cuz their insurance companies are overloaded. I dunno...

So, what else? Katelyn can almost crawl now. It's crazy, she's seven months old tomorrow, and all the sudden she's scooting all around everywhere. She has two little teeth we like to call "teefers" for some reason. It sounds cuter when you say it out loud.

Have you voted yet? We did early voting. I didn't want to at the time, just because it ended up with me being a little rushed for work, but it worked out a lot better than it would have if we had gone later. I heard that some people have had to wait like three hours to vote. That's nuts. But at least people are voting.

*********

So yeah, I started that post two days ago and am now finishing it. I took the TCLEOSE exam today. It's the test you take if you want to become a police officer. That is a stinkin' hard test. Glad it's over.

In other news, Daylight Savings being over was wonderful. That extra hour of sleep was terrific. Did you wake up/go anywhere early? I did. I woke up at 6:30 instead of 7:30. For a weekend, that's way too early.

This is a bunch of random thoughts put together, so I'm going to go for now. When I think of something better to say, I'll try to post again. Later,

Been a While...

2008-09-20T23:02:00.002-05:00

My friends and readers, I am back. It's been some time since I last spoke to you, and of course, much has happened. I'm sure by now you all know about hurricane Ike. I worked quite a bit of overtime during the storm, so I'm not complaining, but I'd like to talk about this last week if I might.

Melissa and Katelyn have been gone since Thursday. It's the longest I've ever been away from Melissa and the first time I've ever been away from Katelyn. I miss them both so much. I just found out they're coming home tomorrow, so at least it will be better soon. It's been weird being all alone for so long - it'll end up being 11 days total. That's a long time. I've been surviving, so don't freak out (thanks very much). Many friends and family members have been watching out for me, and for the hospitality, I thank you.

We got power back here on Sunday afternoon, so we haven't really been hurting over here. I did have to throw away everything in my refrigerator; that wasn't fun. It's a pretty depressing sight. A lot of people in my Academy class still don't have power.

So yeah, I went and saw Traitor. It's a pretty good movie. It's a little strange because it's coming from the viewpoint of Islamic terrorists, and they're not usually portrayed as the "good guys." NOTE: I'm not putting personal feelings about this, because I don't want to start a discussion. I'm just saying it was strange to see it from that viewpoint. Pretty good movie overall. I'm excited to watch "Righteous Kill" when I get a chance. It's a Robert DeNiro/ Al Pacino movie about some cops. Can't go wrong there, huh? :)

Well, only have 9 weeks left in the academy - very excited about that. Means we've got a total of 44 working days left. I know, you're thinking, "isn't 9 weeks of 5 days equal 45?" Yes, it does, but we have Veteran's Day off.

OK, going to bed now. I had thought about making a nice long post, but I'm just too tired. Later,

Can You Believe It?

2008-08-18T19:44:00.002-05:00

Surprise!! I'm not dead!! It has truly been forever since my last post. I don't even remember the last time I posted. Yes, I could have checked, but I didn't feel like it. So how have you been? If you're reading this, then yes, I mean you. Please, leave a response involving my question. Don't leave me feeling alone and unwanted.

So gosh, what all has happened since I last posted?? I am in the police academy right now. We're in week 15, and good grief it's hard! I can't go into detail as to what we're doing, but believe me it IS hard. I'm learning so much I can hardly process all of it. I'm not allowed to post pictures yet, or I'd do that, so just imagine me in a very professional uniform.

Here's weird for you: I am listening to (and of course singing with) John Mayer. Yeah, I used to think he looked like a crazy strung-out druggie, but since he cut his hair and started dating Jennifer Aniston, I figured he seems pretty normal, and he really has some pretty good music.

Have you ever watched an episode of FRIENDS? It's my favorite TV show ever, and I only got to watch it for the last couple seasons. Yeah, we weren't allowed to watch it when we were younger. I understand why, because it's not exactly a show about role models, but it's funny and I connect with the characters.

So Katelyn is Four and a half Months old now! She's getting so big now. I don't have any pictures with me right now, but I'm sure there are plenty on Melissa's blog (check my LINKS list on the right). She found her toes last week and figured out how to roll over. It's so stinkin' cute. I can't believe how fast it's going.

Wanna hear something weird? I can't think of a whole lot to talk about! Yeah, well I used to catch my inspiration from my job and things I read online while I was "working." I can't really talk about what's going on at my job now, so it's kinda hard to think of stuff to talk about.

...

OK, someone leave a comment and give me a topic to talk about. If I'm gonna keep this blog going, I'm gonna need a topic to work with. Help me out people!!!

Later,

No, I'm not dead...

2008-07-10T20:26:00.002-05:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Yes, I know it's been forever and you probably can't believe that I'm actually posting. Before you get your hopes up, I don't have that terrible much to talk about. The Academy is going well, but I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about on the internet. I'll find out later and tell you all about it. I can tell you that getting up at 4 AM every day is getting a little old. I get about four hours of sleep each night and if you've ever been a parent, you know that's pretty decent sleep, but I'd prefer at least two more hours than that. Melissa can testify that I'm doing my PT (Physical Training) because I am (finally) developing some nice muscles (Pictures to come later...maybe). :) We start our Skills training in about two weeks. Skills consist of Driving, Shooting, and Defensive Tactics. We are all very excited to get a break from the classroom and endless lectures. I have missed being able to update you all on totally random crap from my head all the time, but please know it's either take time to blog or spend time with my wife and daughter and they will always be more important.

So if you read melissa's blog (ordinaryexultations.blogspot.com) you'll see that katelyn is growing big and strong. She has recently discovered how to use her voice so sometime's we're blessed with some very cute cooing and other times with totally random screeching. she's not usually upset, just experimenting with her abilities I suppose.

Anyway, I'm going to go for now. Maybe once we start skills I'll put up a picture of me in my uniform. Hey, at least it would be something. Later,

$

2008-05-10T18:07:00.006-05:00

For those of you that don't read other people's comments, James was "friendly" enough to update all of you on my life. Thank you James. Anyway, it inspired me to finally post. I have been wanting to. Don't think I've enjoyed torturing all of you by not posting. I am so sorry my public. I decided I would give you some pictures, and then I'll talk about how things have been going.

Here is a picture of some baby I saw in my car today. She's pretty cute. Ok so maybe she's mine. That's right, who would have thought that half of me and half of Melissa could look so cute. What's that, you all expected this? Ok, well fine. (Sigh) she's growing so big so fast. It's speeding by. Slow down child! Parenting is awesome, but I don't think anyone can warn you enough. They need to write book about parenting called Everything they Forgot to Tell You. Only problem with this book being that they would have to update it every six months. They should make one of those for Marriage, too. Again, the update rate would be a little much to keep up with. In all seriousness though, life is awesome with my ladies. I couldn't ask for a better home life. My wife is the most incredible, beautiful, graceful, and patient woman in the entire world, and I love and appreciate her so much. I'm so thrilled that Katelyn was born in time for Mother's Day. I got her some nice stuff for tomorrow. Ok, well I hope she thinks it's nice stuff.

I haven't talked about my motorcycle in a while, but I have added a new part, so I thought I'd mention in. As you can see in the blurry picture (stupid cell phone), I have added a windshield to my Honda Rebel. I think it makes the little bike look a little bigger. It makes a huge difference on the highway, and I'm pretty sure it increases my gas mileage too. Of course at 75 mpg, I'm sure not hurting. I'm going to be using this bike a whole lot more in the future since I'll be driving to the Police Academy every day. It's not that much longer of a morning commute - probably about 35 minutes now instead of 7. Compared to some people I know that's a pretty short drive time, so I'm not complaining. I've been so blessed by other people that this windshield is the first upgrade I've actually had to pay for.

Sweetheart, you can skip this section if you want to, because you hear so much about these every day. I have new guns. I sold my Glock 23 and bought a Glock 22 and a Glock 27. For those of you that don't know (most of you), all three of the guns I just listed are all .40 caliber pistols. The 22 is the full size model, the 23 is the compact, and the 27 is the sub-compact. To recap in English, I got rid of the medium size and got the big and little sizes. I'm going to use them for my duty and back up weapons when I work for HPD. I have taken them to the range and they are wonderful. The Glock 27 is the smallest pistol Glock manufactures. It is TINY. I can hide it anywhere. Something I didn't include in the pictures is that the Glock 22 came with night sights. They look like regular sights in the daylight, but if you get them in dim lighting or no lighting, they glow a very nice green color.

Glock 27

Glock 22

Both.

So in other news, I have finally quit my job at Best Access Systems, and I couldn't be happier about it. After one month, I have been accepted into the Houston Police Academy. I'm so excited to finally be on the road to Law Enforcement. It's going to be six months before I'm on the streets, and a year until I can start doing extra jobs and fun stuff like that, but I'm working on it now. I was so tired of waiting. I can hardly believe that it's really happening. I will have more to post on the academy once it starts of course. I will keep you all updated.

I'm going to pick up dinner now (KFC, yummm), so I'll talk to you later.

She's Encaptured!!

2008-04-17T14:08:00.002-05:00

My dear friends, it has been a while since the last post. I would apologize, but I've been so busy with the HPD hiring process, a hungry baby, and a tired wife that I just haven't had the time or energy to post. On the bright side, I have LOTS to talk about!

Item One: Katelyn has her days and nights mixed up. The poor thing sleeps all day long and eats all night long. She's getting better, and oh my gosh she's so cute when she sleeps. We have taken many more pictures and a few videos. Someday we're gonna be watching those videos with her future husband and she's going to wonder what was wrong with us.

Item Two: we had a lot of fun last week - we found termites in our apartment. We didn't know that's what they were at first - we just knew bugs in apartment = bad. We went to the front office and asked for help and they told us they couldn't do anything. Then they threw us out of the office. If you are ever looking for an apartment, don't choose Stonegate Villas - they don't care about you. Tell your friends. Anyway, it's been an issue - we had someone come out in 30 minutes and tell us it was termites, so I told the office on Saturday. They called me on Tuesday so say "we don't think they're really termites." Obviously that didn't sit well, so I told them to try again. They called me back with, "ok, they are termites, but we don't have anyone available to fix the problem - we'll try to squeeze you in on Wednesday." I got a call today to say "ok, our bug guy says they were blown in with the wind, so we can't do anything about it." Wonderful isn't it? So the way I see it, if no more bugs show up, we're ok. If bugs show back up, I'm going to capture some and set them loose in the front office and THEN see if they care. At least that's what I'd like to do...

Item Three: Polygraph tests are freaky! They put all this crap on you and then drill you for like two hours about lying. I was so freaked out the whole time. It's like walking through a metal detector - I'm always afraid of setting it off even though I have nothing to hide. Either way, I passed the test. Assuming HPD doesn't find anything in my background that I don't know about, I should be good to go. I'll be so glad to get out of this current job. It's almost hard to believe that in less than a month I could have my dream job. Here's to hoping it goes well!

Item Four: You're probably still wondering about the title to this post. The first week home with Katelyn was not a week of much sleep for Melissa or myself. It led to more than a couple cases of gibberish talk. Melissa tried to wake me up one night and I replied with "She's encaptured!!" I have no idea what that means. It's a product of sleep deprivation.

Item Five: If you haven't seen the movie Dan In Real Life, let me warn you - it's depressing. I watched it with Melissa the other night, and it left me so depressed by the end that I wanted to find a dark closet and hide from humanity. His character echoes so many feelings I used to have as a kid it's not even funny. Strangely enough, my parents love the movie. I dunno. I didn't like it. I liked the bloopers and the special feature on the soundtrack better than the actual movie. The music is good on that movie. Look up the artist - Sondre Lerche. He looks a little funny, but he's really good with a guitar and has a pretty good voice, too. I think I'm gonna get the soundtrack cuz it's all his music. Check it out.

I probably should get back to work, so I'm going to go for now. Leave a comment if you have any interesting news. Later,

$

My Daughter is Finally Here...

2008-04-05T14:40:00.008-05:00

Well ladies and gents, she's finally here. Some of you are probably thinking, what, you're only just now saying so?? But hey, when you have a brand new baby, you run out of time for a lot of things. We've been busy not sleeping. Don't be deceived, we couldn't really be much happier, but we are a little tired. Our sweet princess doesn't require as much sleep as we do during normal hours. No, she prefers to sleep when we're awake. Oh well, one look at her, and you just can't be upset. She's so perfect. I have lots of pictures. I'm only showing you a few because I haven't figured out how to get my pics from the camera, but i have a few from my cell phone that i don't think anyone else has. Here we go...

I took this Thursday night. Kind of a gangster look...

I just couldn't resist.

Look at those big beautiful eyes...

I think she heard a noise or something...

This is shortly after birth, I think just a couple hours...

With Grandma Susan

With Mommy right after birth...

With Grandpa Randy

How precious is that...

My favorite

About as peaceful as she gets...

With Aunt Bethany

Biiiiiiiiig yawn, liiiiiiitle mouth

At rest...

What did you just say???

This is cool because this represents a four generation span...

With Ryan

How adorable!!

Doesn't get much better than this...

Out cold...

Wish I could sleep this well...

So cute you could eat her...

Up close and personal

Mommy was tired too...

More pictures to come soon!! Stay Tuned!!

Hmm...

2008-03-30T22:50:00.002-05:00

So I wonder, how come nobody's left a comment asking where I am, how I'm doing, if I'm even still ALIVE??? Maybe you all take me for granted. Then again, only like ten people read this blog...Ok, eleven if you count the mysterious anonymous commenter (who are you?). Still, ok whatever.

So yeah, Katelyn is still not here. Baby girl is one hour away from being nine days late. She is nearing Daddy's record, and that is not necessarily a good thing. We would much rather be counting the days that she has spent outside the womb than the days that she is spending still inside. Baby girl come OUT!

This almost feels like a long weekend, but here we are again preparing to start a new work week. I am comforted by the fact that I probably won't have to finish this work week because my daughter will be born. Oh, I got to do another ride along with Jersey Village PD. That's police department for you civilians out there. Anyway, this time I got to ride with James instead of someone I've never met. We pulled over lots of people, went really fast on the highway, and arrested someone. Ok, I didn't do any of those things, but I got to watch James do them. It was really cool. The only thing more fun that going on a ride-along is being a cop on patrol and getting to do all that stuff.

What...the...HECK does "crunchy" mean????? My wife and Lynne used it tonight, and I don't understand. I thought about just asking, but then I figured, "hey, if I put in on the blog, then they'll answer on the blog, and everybody else will get to learn, too!" So smart am I.

Can't think of anything else for now. Later,

$

Day 283

2008-03-25T09:18:00.004-05:00

So, we're three days late. Still no baby. That's ok though, because if she's not out yet, God must not want her out yet. That's not really any consolation to Melissa, because it means the baby is still inside her body, but at least we know she'll be here soon. Worst case she'll be two weeks late, that's about as long as we're willing to let her stay in. We're happy letting Lynne have the record among us for latest baby. Melissa has tried just about everything for getting this baby out, and Katelyn has dropped a LOT, but still no baby. We're trying not to obsess, but we want her here NOW. If she could just see all the stuff we have waiting for her, she'd be out here two weeks ago. This little girl is gonna have so many cool clothes and toys and stuff, she should come out and enjoy them. In other news, there is no other news. Umm, no seriously, no other news right now. Nothing's really going on, we're not going anywhere anytime soon other than the hospital. You will know when the baby is here - I'll post about it, and we're going to build her her own blog for pictures and stuff.

Question, when you see a movie like The Patriot, 300, or Gladiator, (I know all you women love these movies) do you care if it's 100% accurate? These three movies are on the list of the top 10 most innacurate movies. Stupid little facts. For example, in 300 the men didn't wear just the little speedo things, they wore bronze armor. So what?? What woman watching that movie wished the men were wearing more? And for the guys, we couldn't care less, because the action was great. Granted, some of the things about that movie could have been left out, but overall a good movie. You get my point. Which matters more, the accuracy or the story line? I'm gonna say the story line matters more. Unless it was something that affected me directly - some family history or something, I would rather see a good movie with a few smudged facts than watch a boring accurate movie. Aren't movies supposed to entertain anyway? I dunno. I'm not expecting a right or wrong answer here, just wanting your opinion.

Anyone see Brittany Spears on TV last night? That's right, she was on How I Met Your Mother. Her acting is even worse than her singing. Although she didn't look half bad. That poor girl just couldn't handle the fame and pressure from her younger years. Too bad. She should go get a real job or something.

Anyway, I'm gonna go for now, gotta work cuz I never know when I'm gonna leave for the baby.

P.S. Look up the news story about the woman where they took out her organs to remove cancer.

Later,

$

No, I'm not dead...

2008-03-18T08:12:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time again, I know. Many things have been going on. Looks like we're finally selling our stupid Explorer this week!! Yay!!! That officially means that I can go ahead with my HPD application, and Melissa can for sure stay home and not go back to work. Yay! It has been a huge stress lately because if it hadn't sold, well, things would have been really tight. But that's over now, or will be by Saturday.

So I got a new phone! My Verizon account renewed so I got one of these. Oh yeah, that's totally a bowl of water. It's waterproof. How cool is that? Lynne and Melissa are insisting that it is NOT babyproof, but who cares, what really is? I'm gonna keep telling myself that it is. Oh well, it's cool.

So what's up? Melissa is due on Saturday. That's right - this Saturday. We are soooo ready for that baby to get here. Melissa has been put on modified bed rest because of high blood pressure, so one more reason she'd like the baby to get here.

I could talk much more, but I'm really behind at work and should get back to it. Later,

$

March is here!

2008-03-06T09:07:00.004-06:00

So, guess what, we're havin' a baby this month!! I say this month, because we are totally believing that the baby will not be more than 9 days late. Plus, can you imagine being born on April Fool's Day? I think I know a person that was, but talk about getting made fun of. Yeah, she's coming out this month. We are so ready for Katelyn to be here. We have a crib, and a stroller, and a travel system, and some diapers (finally!!), and sooooo many cute clothes. If you haven't ever bought baby girl clothes for your child or someone else's child, you may not understand what I'm about to say. I want to buy one of every little outfit!! Good grief, they're all just so cute. My daughter has so many clothes already, she's not even going to wear all of them I think. We'll probably end up swapping some out for larger sizes.

So how's your week going? Yesterday was sooooooo slow, but today seems to be going much faster. Supposed to rain today. Yesterday was beautiful during the afternoon and ride home. I wish it could always be right around that temp - upper 60's to low 70's with sunshine and a couple clouds here and there. It doesn't matter that much in a car, but we bikers prefer nice weather. :)

So really, what's up? Somebody tell me something cool. Anybody seen any movies lately? Done anything exciting? I tell you what, I actually, get this, I went to work yesterday!! How crazy is that?!?! ........... Ok so I tried. I did manage to burn my arm on my exhaust pipes yesterday. It looks like my forearm got shot with a paintball. I didn't think I was that close to the pipe - I was trying to wipe some stuff off of my bike. Weird though, it doesn't hurt today.

So Melissa has officially started her maternity "leave." Yeah, permanent leave. She ain't going back there, no sir. She sent me a text on Monday morning and I quote: "This... is weird." I warned her, though. If I hear her say "I'm bored" even once, it's back to the sweat shop! Ok maybe not, but no talk of being bored. :)

So I need some opinions. My lunch for today is wrapped in aluminum foil. I left home at 7AM, and remembered to put it in the office fridge at 9:30. It's still ok, right? Hopefully so. let me know!

Later,

$

Humor For Lexophiles (Lovers of Words)

2008-02-27T09:33:00.003-06:00

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

Police were called to a day care where a 3-yr-old was resisting a rest.

Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.

The butcher backed up into the meat grinder & got a little behind in his work.

To write with a broken pencil is pointless.

When fish are in schools, they sometimes take debate.

The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

A thief who stole a calendar got 12 months.

A thief fell & broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal.

When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.

The dead batteries were given out free of charge.

A dentist & a manicurist fought tooth and nail.

A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

A will is a dead giveaway.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

A backward poet writes inverse.

In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft & I'll show you A-flat miner.

The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.

You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

A calendar's days are numbered.

A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

A boiled egg is hard to beat.

He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

When you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.

When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
Acupuncture: a jab well done.

Another Week Begins

2008-02-25T07:23:00.002-06:00

So my fellow humans, how is life? I'm tired. My wife, if reading this, is shaking her head thinking "Oh YOU'RE tired?!?!" But she's 36 weeks pregnant, so she can think like that. So can Lynne, cuz she's on a trip with just her 7 month-old son. So can James, cuz he's working like 180 hours a week (do the math). Ok, I'm tired - other people are too, I'm not saying I'm....tireder than you, I'm just tired. So what's up this week? We're hoping that Katelyn comes out soon. Like Melissa's blog (ordinaryexultations.blogspot.com) says, she's full term now, so any day is great! Why is it that Houston weather is so weird? It was 50 degrees when I walked outside this morning, and the high today is 82!! How do you dress for that? Ok yeah I know, LAYERS, but I don't like having to transport them back home. It's one thing if you have a car, but on a bike, a whole layer of clothing takes up a lot of storage space!

We watched the Oscars last night, I don't know why I watch them every year. You watch the Oscars to see what the ladies wear, and who wins what prize, right? Almost every woman there is wearing a weird dress. The ones that aren't, a.k.a. jennifer garner, miley cirus, look great, but they're million-dollar celebrities, so of course they look good. Sheesh. I hate watching award shows like that, because my picks never win! OK, almost never win. POTC won a couple times, and Sweeney Todd won one last night, but they usually never win, because they aren't the politically correct choice. The shows are rigged. Gotta be. Some world domination thing. Oh well, what are ya gonna do? So I'm gonna go, have to work now. Later,

$

Larry the Cable Guy...soooooo bad

2008-02-19T23:08:00.000-06:00

Friday Again

2008-02-15T09:52:00.004-06:00

Funny, no matter what I do, we always end up having a Friday every week. It always seems to follow Thursday and precede Saturday. It's usually a day of wrapping things up, usually a little bit of overwhelming stress from the rest of the week, and sometimes a glimmer of hope. Hope that the weekend will justify the week we just went through. It's supposed to rain this weekend, but I think it will be a good one just the same. We are expecting rain, but it's February in Houston, TX, so what else is new? The temperature is still decent - 60's and 70's so we're not freezing or burning up.

If you have a minute today, check out this blog. It's one Melissa frequents, and today's post is amazing. WARNING: if you are prone to crying at sad stories, grab a couple tissues before reading. It's a really good way to put things in perspective. In fact, go read it now, and then finish reading this post. Do it! I'm not kidding, go read it now.

This story brings to mind something I've been thinking about for a couple years really, and it's the topic of Joy. That word always makes me think of this verse: "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." (James 1:2-4) That is so difficult to do! I have so many thoughts on this that I don't even know where to start, so I'll try to organize this as well as possible. Let me give you a definition of joy: the emotion of great happiness. Let me take it a step further. True joy is something that comes from having the Spirit of God inside you. Remember the Fruits of the Spirit? Love, JOY, Peace... It must be an important one, too, cuz it's the second one listed. Joy is different from happiness, I think, because happiness tends to depend on our circumstances. You wouldn't necessarily be happy if you got stuck in jail, but the apostle Paul always managed to be joyful when he was stuck in prison. Check out this verse from 1 Peter: "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy." (1 Peter 4:12-13) Amazing! Be happy in times of trials! To take it another step forward, if we are called to be joyful in times of trial, how much more should we be filled with that same joy when things are good? Pray that God would fill you with His joy, and watch what happens. "And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." (Matthew 21:22)

In other news, we are only 35.5 days away from Melissa's due date!! 5 weeks left! Crazy. Technically, I've been told that once we reach the 4 week mark, it could happen at any time. Apparently 36 weeks is a full term. For any of y'all hoping she'll come early (ahem, MOM, BETHANY), you may get your wish. We still have a couple things to do, but I'm confident we'll be able to finish them. By the way, I am still trying to sell our Explorer, so if you know anyone that wants/needs a car, tell 'em to give me a call or shoot me an email. I've got bunches of pictures, and we're selling it cheap, we just need it GONE. (sigh) It's been a long week, but like I said, I think this weekend will be a good one. There's a gun show in town that I might go to - those never seem to get old. Melissa and Lynne are going to see some documentary in Louisiana this weekend, so I hope they have fun. That's all for now. Later.

$

)(&@#$(&^#&^

2008-02-06T19:02:00.000-06:00

Stupid.

Stupid, stupid.

I had jury duty today. Jury duty is stupid. I had to get up at 5:30 this morning just so I could get downtown by 7:15. I then proceeded to sit in a chair at 1019 congress until 11 am. I met no new people, because who knows what kind of serial killer could be sitting next to you. On the bright side, I was able to read four chapters of a pretty good Star Wars book. You know, when they need people, thats when they should randomly select people and bring them in. Why do they have to call 500 people in if they're only going to use 200 of them? Plus, they didn't even randomly select us, they just starting picking entire groups of numbers, and they went IN ORDER!! Where's the randomness? Why couldn't they have just picked those numbers right off the bat, and called those people in? You know what else I figured out? They have multiple shifts of jurors coming in. I was in the 8am group, and then they had a 12pm group, and then they probably had a 4pm group. That's like 1500 people out of which only 600 are used. WHAT THE HECK???? Plus, you know what, not even all of those 600 were used. They would call like 24 people to go over to one court, then they weed through them and use only 6!! Soooooo stupid. I don't like that. Aaaaand, they only pay you 6 freaking bucks for your service. I made $1.25/hr sitting there reading my book. They should at least pay you minimum wage. Government. Ha. Timewasters is more like it. Stupid stupid stupid.

What a day - this week is taking forEVER. When will the insanity end??? Some weeks (thankfully not very many) are just like this - everything bad seems to come together and hit me all at once. Yes, I am rich and far more fortunate than many people all over the world, so I have tons of stuff to be grateful for.

To be honest, I had one other external reason for posting today. Lynne threatened to hurt Melissa and me if we didn't post soon, so here I be posting. Have a great day. Later,

$

Monday

2008-01-28T12:44:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so my last post sounded way depressing and ticked off. Don't know why cuz I felt fine. Probably just because I was tired and ready for bed. I can't tell you how many typos I had to fix before i could post that.

So yesterday was fun, we went to Brandon Hamburg and Liz Knoll (now Hamburg)'s wedding. It was very short and sweet, and then the reception was awesome. I will say this though - I don't appreciate that open bar as much now as I did then. No, I didn't get drunk, but I did fall asleep by 9:15 at home last night. Pretty nice evening though - I even danced with Melissa for a dance. I had to call it quits when they started doing more than just slow dancing. I don't know how to do anything else, and have never brought myself to learn. Oh well.

So back at work today. How was your weekend? I hope you found something fun to do. I think next weekend we're going to just be spontaneous and pick an activity. I know it kind of defeats the purpose of saying "spontaneous" if you're planning it, so we'll just not plan anything till we wake up. Fun fun fun.

I don't know that I really have that much to say today - I just wanted to counter balance the negativity I sensed in the last post. I hope you have a great day, whoever you are. Later,

$

Weekend's here, having fun yet?

2008-01-27T01:47:00.000-06:00

Alright, so I have an idea, but it's going to take a lot of people to get this done. I want to petition for a change. A change in the calendar. We need to add an extra day or two to the week so that we can actually have free time on the weekend!! I know I know, someone once told me that I'd never have free time 'till after I graduated from college, and yes, I know that God knew what He was doing when He made the earth and rested on the 7th day, but I think He'd understand. Every time a weekend gets here I naively thing "hey, nothing to do this weekend, yay!" ........ Yeah, so we ALWAYS have something to do over the weekend. We just do - it's our destiny. This weekend, Melissa had baby shower 1 of 3, Ryan and I went to the range, had two meals with my dad, and then James and Lynne came over and we hung out 'till a little after midnight. Did you happen to see the part where Melissa and I just hung out at home with nothing to do? Oh, what you missed that part? No, because it wasn't there. No I'm not being bitter, and no I'm not having a pity party, I just think this is one good reason we need extra days in our weekends. The five work days-

Fine, you know what, don't listen. I know I was just boring you with that topic, and heaven forbid I ever write anything boring or slightly off the beaten path. I'll just give up on the creative side of my brain and quit thinking outside the box. Sheesh.

So, I said we went to the range today - tried out the new shotgun I bought on Tuesday. It's so sweet. Here's a link to the manufacturer's website. It's the last one on the page. It's really pretty nice even though it was really cheap. The barrel is only 1/2 " longer than the federal limit, so that's a nice perk.

I think I was going to make this post a fairly nice size, but it's 2:03 am, and we have to be at church in 7:45 minutes, at least 1.5 hr's of which I will not be asleep for, so I'm calling it quits for tonight. Later,

Fun at Four

2008-01-21T21:03:00.000-06:00

So, (ominous music playing) ever been woken up at four A.M. to someone jiggling your door handle? Yeah, it's not as fun as it sounds. Then again, if you think that sounds fun, there is something majorly wrong with you. Seek help. No seriously, go find help. Pay good money. Anywho, back on topic, someone did that this morning. It was weird too, because I was having a kind of cool dream about someone breaking in and me beating the crud out of them. I will be totally honest here, when I heard the door handle moving, my bravery disappeared like cheap beer at a bachelor party. You may think, "don't worry, I would have been scared too," but I'm supposed to be the brave one who protects my family. My first thought was, "don't worry, you're still dreaming." When it happened again a few seconds later, my second thought was, "crap, I gotta go out there and check it out." So, with gun and giant Mag Light, I cleared my apartment. Thankfully no one was there. I would hate to hurt someone, and hollow points are expensive and I don't feel like buying more right now. Yes, that was me sounding tough to offset my aforementioned loss of bravery in the face of possible danger. I got to thinking today, what would have happened if there was someone in the apartment or trying to get into the apartment? The (hopefully) obvious answer is first call 911. But what if they make it inside before the cops get here? Time for Dane the Fearless to respond. That's a sucky feeling. Yeah, I'm positive I could easily put a 140 grain Cor-Bon DPX hollow point directly between their eyes, but I have no desire to. Why would you ever purposely kill someone? So all that to say, it's a tough spot to be in if someone is trying to gain entry into your home. So that was freaky, and the end to our peaceful sleep. Rest of the day went fine except for the rain on the way home. Veeeeery wet. Tomorrow I'm going to look at shotguns and big locking bolts (bolts for the door and shotgun for me). Shotguns are nice for home defense because even if someone makes it into your home, you can just pump a round into your shotgun, and they'll leave. A) because they don't know how big of a gauge you have, and B) they don't know what kind of mean crap you have in there. Some people sell some pretty mean loads for 12 gauge shotguns.

What's going on with you this week? Any movies you seen lately? Let me know.

Sad but semi-true proof you're getting old. It's 9:40 at night, and I'm going to bed. I bid you good evening. Later,

Friday!!

2008-01-18T11:54:00.000-06:00

Hey people, really busy today, but I HAD to post this. Can you imagine if this happened here?? My gosh the news media and ACLU and FBI and CIA and every other acronymic government entity would be swarming all over the place. We'd blame it on some Middle-Eastern country, invade some innocent country like Luxembourg or something and all hell would break loose. Sheesh. See for yourself:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's military Thursday offered compensation to a homeowner after a small rocket veered off course and hit his country house outside Moscow.
Russian Internet chatrooms were buzzing late Wednesday after local news agencies reported that "an unidentified flying object dropped two bombs near Moscow."
A defense ministry official told Reuters two rockets had gone astray during a military exercise near Moscow Wednesday afternoon. One hit the roof of an unoccupied house 3.5 km (2.2 miles) away.
"The damage is estimated at 60,000 rubles ($2,466). It will be compensated for in two days," said Yevgeny Konashenkov, spokesman for Russian land troops. "The owner of the house treats the incident with understanding. He has no legal claims."
Luckily for the nearby compound of cottage houses, the rockets disconnected at launch from the load of explosives they normally carry to clear minefields.

Slight Overkill on the Gun Control

2008-01-09T09:27:00.000-06:00

So, I just thought this was funny. The law states that any firearm not in use must be kept locked, unloaded, and/or separate from the ammo. If a minor has access to both unlocked gun and ammo, many legal issues can follow (it's a felony). So, since I'm only carrying one gun right now, my other one is at home locked up. I just had to post pictures because I only have one gun lock, and the gun is really tiny.

Yes that's the whole thing. We're talking deck of cards, here. In fact, I think the trigger lock weighs the same amount as the gun does.

Here's a good way to tell how small that gun is. The bullet on the right is a .40 JHP made by Cor-Bon. That's what I typically keep in my Glock. The bullet on the left is a .25 JHP made by Speer, and yes, that's what goes in that little gun. Yes, that is a guitar pick (roughly the size of a quarter) to demonstrate just how small those little bullets are. Tiiiiiny.

Read a good quote today. "If you have to call 911, it's probably already too late." That pretty much sums up the reason most people carry concealed weapons. Makes sense, say someone is trying to mug you. You can't say, "hang on for a sec while I call the cops," but you can pull out your legally concealed firearm and scare them off, or if need be, defend yourself in a very incapacitating manner.

So what's up? We have another ultrasound scheduled today. I tell ya, if the doctor's office wasn't paying for these, I'd be broke. Oh well.

Anywho, only an hour and a half left in this workday, so I'll ttyl. Maybe I'll post some ultrasound pics up here later.

2008-01-07T12:13:00.000-06:00

I have more pictures! Yes, they're just of my bike, but I got the Sissy Bar in, and wanted to put a couple pics up so you can see. My sister's only comment was, "It looks like a motorcycle now!" I'm not sure I want to know what she thought it looked like before... Anyway, this was soooo much easier to install. It works great, too. Haven't had anyone ride on it yet, but that is absolutely OK. I don't know if you can tell, but I washed the bike yesterday, so I think the chrome looks a lot better now. That stuff is so hard to keep clean! Plus, everytime I get rained on (like tomorrow and maybe tonight) it just gets dirty again. Stupid Houston weather. Oh well, what can ya do?

So Melissa's sister Morgan gets back from 4 months in England tomorrow. It seems like forever that she's been gone - we all missed her I think... Yeah we did.

Man, traffic today was AWFUL on the way to work. I spent almost 15 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic. That doesn't sound bad unless you consider that my whole drive is usually 15 minutes, and bumper-to-bumper means I'm walking the bike. That's tiring.

Anyway, I have lots to get done, so this is all for today. Later.

$

Friday...yay

2008-01-04T08:42:00.000-06:00

I have pictures for the first time in forever! This is my motorcycle with the new luggage rack my father got me for Christmas. Nice huh? Yeah, it took like an hour and a half to put on. Crazy. It looked easy - take off four screws and put on four new ones. NO NO NO. Take off five screws, two of which are a different size, and three of which are almost IMPOSSIBLE to remove without special tools. Did I mention we did it outside and it was COLD? Yeah, waaaaay fun. Ok so maybe it was a little fun. It looks nice I think and will look even better once the Sissy Bar comes in on Monday. Stop laugh- no, stop laughing! That's what it's called. It's a back rest for the second rider on a motorcycle. No, I'm not giving rides to anyone cuz I don't want to overload my bike - I take up over half the capacity by myself. It's so I can strap stuff on the bike and carry more. Back packs can only carry so much before they start hurting your shoulders.

So I read an interesting story today on Yahoo. Here's the LINK. Window washer in New York fell 47 stories (500 ft) and is expected to walk again! That's insane.

I know I'm a couple days late asking this, but does anybody have a New Year's Resolution they'd like to share with....everybody else?

Again, been forever...

2008-01-03T08:38:00.000-06:00

Sooo, what's new? It's been like another week, and last night Melissa asked me why I haven't posted in forever, and I couldn't really come up with another idea. Problem is, I typically post when I have something to make fun of, or something I'm mad at. This is not always good posting material, so I try not to do it too much. Buncha tiny words in that last sentence, still with me? Good. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're doing just fine - it won't get any clearer.

So I talked about Christmas right? Lots of good stuff. Hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season. Was New Year's good for you? Lots of fireworks and merriment? Good, cuz you won't get another holiday for like five months!! HA HA HA. Yeah, that's one bad thing about our years, they didn't balance out the holidays very well, so at the end of the year you get like four or five and the beginning of the year has none. Who designed it that way? Oh well, no sense crying over it now. I had a pretty nice New Year's Eve...ning. It was COLD though! Brrrr!! Then again, if you compare my ride to work this morning with the temperature on Monday night, that was a sauna! It was 29 degrees out the door today! You know what that is with the wind chill? TEN DEGREES!!!! Yikes is right. My fingers are still cold and I've been at work with a cup of coffee since 7:30. I even wore four layers. I am officially ready for it to be hot again. 90 degrees would be great. Now that I talk about hot weather, some of these layers are getting hot. Be back in a minute...

.................

..................

Ok, feeling much better now. So really, what's up with you? Seen any good movies? The last two movies I went to were pretty good. Good thing too, cuz I saw them both twice. I Am Legend and National Treasure 2. NT2 wasn't as good as IAL, but it was still good.

I think I had too much time off. I had six days with no work, and now I REALLY don't want to be back. Oh well. Know what's crazy? I took off all my layers earlier, and now I'm freezing again, and I have to go put some back on. Maybe not all of them, but at least one layer. Sheesh. I'm going now. I'll try to post again tomorrow. Later.

$

Already Over...

2007-12-26T08:37:00.000-06:00

And just like that, it's all over. People say, "but the Holidays are still here," but it doesn't feel like it. New Years is a totally different holiday than Christmas. New Years celebrations are nothing like Christmas celebrations except for the people gathering and eating. The gift-giving (and receiving) is over, and people are starting to resort back to their typical I'm-better-than-you-so-bug-off mentality. Yeah, I'm excited that 2007 is almost over, and I'm sure fireworks will be fun as ever, but I hate that Christmas disappears so quickly. We should turn Christmas into like a week-long celebration. That whole Twelve Days of Christmas, we should resurrect that! Christmas is like your birthday: it takes forever to get here, suddenly it's right around the corner, and then in a flash it's gone! Every year I realize about 7 pm on December 25th that Christmas is over for the year. After 7, most people I know are starting to head home and get ready for the work day ahead. I dunno, it just sucks.

On the brighter side of life, how was your Christmas? Get good stuff? Fine, if you insist, I'll list what I got cuz I know you're just dying to find out.

1. Red and Black LEATHER motorcycle jacket.
2. Brown Leather Cuff
3. Red, Black, and White motorcyle gloves
4. Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End
5. Chronicles of Riddick 3 Disc set
6. Stealth (DVD)
7. Gun Magazine
8. Travel Coffee Mug and Thermos
9. Candy
10. Starbucks Gift cards
11. Gander Mountain gift card
12. iTunes gift card
13. cash
14. Sissy Bar and Luggage rack for my motorcycle
15. Day-by-day calendar
16. Financial books
17. Dress Shirt
18. Tie
19. Really sweet free verse poem from my wife
20. Flashlight
19. Bourne Ultimatum (DVD)
20. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
21. Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
22. Hand-made Scarf
23. Book on Police Heroes
24. More Candy

I think there was some other stuff, but I really can't remember it right now. Anyway, I should probably get to work since I've been here almost 1.5 hrs and haven't done anything yet but make coffee. Later,

$

It's been forever, I know...

2007-12-17T10:01:00.001-06:00

So, I haven't posted in a little while, but no one complained or reminded me, so there. I'll try to be more frequent so that if anyone cares they won't be dissappointed. I probably mispelled that and mispell because I do everytime, but Lynne Singleton will faithfully correct me because she does that. Anywho....

So today is a special day... Melissa and I have been married for Two Years today!! Yay yay yay, congratulations to us! It's been a fast two years, and definitely doesn't seem like that long, but we have certainly been through more than our share of...stuff. We're going on a much needed date tonight, so that will be good. I can hardly believe it's been two years, especially since I can remember our wedding day like it was yesterday. I think I honestly remember everything about that day. Get your mind out of the gutter. :) So yeah, that's a wonderful thing about today.

In other news, it's only 8 days till Christmas!! Presents presents presents and MORE presents!!! Oh, and we're going to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's really the important reason. The AWESOME presents just highlight the wonderfulness of the day. Melissa and I have been giving each other one gift a day since the 14th. Sort of a twelve days of Christmas count down. It's fun. She's gonna love what I'm giving her tonight, but I can't tell you or she'll find out.

So, anybody getting anything good for Christmas? Yes, I'm implying that (gasp) you know what you're getting. I know a few things I'm getting, but that's partly because people just asked, "what can I get you" and I told them one thing and they said "ok." It's really that simple. If that sounds like a horrible idea, just remember, I hate surprises, so I love knowing what I'm getting.

So I'd love to keep typing, but I'm on a conference call, so I gotta go. Later.

$

Things to Consider...Part Two

2007-12-10T10:42:00.000-06:00

**Why do cleaning people feel the need to clean the bathroom while the building is open?? We might need to use it!!!

**What if humans were born with a rechargeable battery pack?
**Where would it be located?
**Could it be upgraded?
**Would it come with a car adapter?

**What if The Force (Star Wars) was real?
**Would YOU be a Jedi?
**How do you know?

**Are you really awake?

Guess What We Did......

2007-12-05T08:35:00.000-06:00

So Melissa calls me the other night, and says "Baaaaby?". I'm already thinking, "Oh great, what now?" She says, "can I have two kittens?" My first response was ".............................oooookaaaaayyyy..." See, typically, my wife hates cats. She maintains that she still does, but that these are kittens, so they're ok. I keep trying to remind her that they will turn into cats, but whatever. They are awfully cute. I'll try to get some pics up tonight or tomorrow.

On the cats-er, kittens. They are adorable. One is white, the other black and grey with a hint of brown. They have gorgeous eyes, and are very sweet. We were lucky, because they are potty trained, and I only wasted one old pair of jeans figuring out that they expect a litter box. Also, kittens looooooooove artificial Christmas trees. The black one has been in the tree almost nonstop since we brought them inside. This is a very cute sight to see, and I'll have to get a picture of that in here too, it's just that when he's up there (Oh, yeah, they're BOTH males) he's knocking ornaments off the tree so he and his brother can play with them. I caught them trying to eat a rocking horse this morning (shakes head). If you've noticed, I have mentioned names yet, and it's because we can't think of any yet. If you have suggestions, I'll be taking them through the end of the week, so feel free to leave a comment. We've tried a few ideas, but I'm just not liking any of them. It will probably help once I get pictures up, so stay tuned.

In other notes, how 'bout this weather? It's WONDERFUL. Except for mornings. Mornings are cold. I hate cold. I bundle up as much as I can, but it's never quite enough to stop my hands and legs from freezing. It's terrific in the afternoon when the sun is shining. I go on a ride to nowhere just to enjoy the weather. Riding home is a little chilly again, but not near as bad as in the morning time.

I just realized I forgot to mention a very important incident. James and Lynne (and Isaac) Singleton are the proud owners of a house! YAY! They bought it the week after Thanksgiving, and they are moved in. It is a really nice house with lots more room than their apartment, and it's in Jersey Village, so they have a nice neighborhood. We've been over a few times now to help out. Sooo very cool, and we are so happy for our good friends to finally have a real place. Apartments are nice, but not as nice as having a house. Of course, now James has a lawn to mow... ha ha.

So to sum this post up, I need cat names, it's cold outside, and hooray for the Singletons. Later,

Poem of English

2007-12-03T13:19:00.000-06:00

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

Finally At Home!!

2007-11-26T19:56:00.000-06:00

Soo, yeah, it's been like a week since I last posted. How are you? How was Thanksgiving? Ours was pretty good. We finally did Thanksgiving correctly by only going to two houses instead of three. The last couple years we've gone to my parents, her parents, and my grandparents. You end up with a stomach waaaaaay too full of turkey and stuffing, and a strong hatred of everything that is Thanksgiving. I dunno, it was pretty good this year - we got my parents to come to her parents house. The get together at Nana and Papa's was great as usual, about 25 people, and lots of Mimosas. That's champagne and orange juice. Yyyyyuuuuummmmmmm. Time off was great too, went shooting on Tuesday, played Halo 3 for six hours on Wednesday, ate and had fun on Thursday, and hung out with Melissa's family on Friday. Saturday was good too, we spent like five hours getting new tires put on the Impala, went out to lunch at Ninfa's, and then went home and watched Die Hard 4 followed by like five hours of Grey's Anatomy. Wait, did I say that Saturday was fun?? Well, yeah, I did enjoy spending time with my wife - We really don't get enough time to just be together. Sunday was pretty nice enough even though we had to watch more Grey's, but James and Lynne came home from their trip, so we got to hang out with them for a while, and that was fun cuz we hadn't seen them in like five days.

It felt soooo weird to go back to work today. It's not every day you get a week off work. Didn't have a bad day at all - it went by quickly and actually went pretty well, but it seemed strange to not be home with my wife. Didn't really get to ride my bike this weekend either. Of course, that's not really surprising because it either rained or just was freezing cold all weekend.

Can you believe it's less than a month til Christmas? Just think, one month from today, we will have all taken back all the Christmas presents we didn't want. Actually, I should change that to all you people instead of "we" because I neeeeever take presents back. Yeah, I had two presents on my birthday that I was gonna take back, and I didn't ever take one of them back, and the other one took me almost a month to exchange for something else. Is it a bad thing to take gifts back? I don't really think so, but sometimes it can be very awkward if the gift was meant to be seen by the gift-giver. For example, if someone gives you a watch, you can't go get a different watch or just go exchange it for cash. If you are given a CD or a book, that you can usually get away with exchanging because what, are they gonna come over and ask for proof that you still have that thing? Well, they might, but that would be rude and you could call them out on that. Seriously, do it. Later!

$

Back to Work

2007-11-26T07:31:00.000-06:00

I'm hoping to post sometime today!! Keep checking!!

Day Off Number One

2007-11-20T08:32:00.000-06:00

So what's up people? I have today and tomorrow off from work because, well, it was now or never. I had two days of PTO (paid time off) left for this year, and we're not allowed to use it in December and we can't roll it over to next year, aaaand we can't use it during month end, so this literally was the last chance i had to use it! And you thought I was exaggerating. So you know what I'm doing with my free time so far? I'm watching videos on You Tube and posting to my blog! Yay so exciting!! It's really not so bad, I'm gonna go shooting later, and I'm having lunch with my wife. Other than that, I really don't have anything planned. Maybe I'll go for a ride. I usually wish that I could when I can't, and now I can, so maybe I will. Yeah, I'm so not making any sense right now. I just figured that I should post since I have time. This is a short and boring one though because I'm ending it now. Later!

$

Sympathy

2007-11-16T12:07:00.000-06:00

Aww poor Morgan. You are sick and away from your family. How was Paris? Enjoy the Transpo. strike? So sorry you're sick - that's never a fun feeling. Hope you get better soon!

$

What's Happening to America?

2007-11-15T09:29:00.000-06:00

I have read something this morning that-- well, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm shaking my head as I type this, because I'm thinking the idea is just so pitiful. It's a good example of how lazy and yet impatient Americans are getting. Yes I might mean you, but you are American, are you not? Anyway, Papa John's Pizza now has a new ordering option: TEXT MESSAGING!!! Is it really that much of a hassle to call the place? You say "well I don't have the number," but if you've called before, then you have the number in your phone, and you can call information and get the number too. Besides, in order to text the order in, you have to go to their website. If you're at the website, you can get the phone number. I'm ranting, and no one really cares about it as much as I probably do, so I'll stop.

Anywho, how's your life going? It's funny when I ask questions like that, cuz I'm really interested to know even if I don't necessarily know you. Sometimes people tell me, and sometimes people completely ignore the question. We'll see what happens now that I've pointed it out...

So I got my first insult about my motorcycle day before yesterday. One of our service techs walked in the door and says, "Why'd you buy a training bike? Where are your training wheels?" Now, a regular person would be insulted by that. I am a words person (See Five Love Languages (it's a book)) and that really burns. You have insulted my bike, my riding skill, my financial decisions, and I now loathe your existence!! The person insulting me then proceeded to say that he used to have a 90cc bike in college. 90. Mine is 234cc's and you're insulting me because you had a 90cc. Whaaaat the heck. I'd say this person has no room to talk! Bottom line, don't insult people because then they talk bad about you on their blog. No no no, don't insult people because it's not nice, and they get defensive, and they shouldn't have to defend themselves to you unless you are their spouse or accountability partner.

So how's the week going? It's over half way finished! YAY! I'm excited about next week cuz I only have to work Monday. I get to catch up on sleep! Hooray!!! Well, need to get back to work, just thought I'd put something up cuz it's been a couple days. Later,

$

IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!

2007-11-07T07:26:00.001-06:00

Yup yup! We found out yesterday that the baby is a girl!!! She's so gorgeous. She's about ten inches long right now, and weighs about 11 ounces, but she's getting bigger! It's so wonderful to finally know for sure! There's like no chance that it's a boy - you can tell in the ultrasound. We can finally stop saying "he or she" and "it." Scary thing though, now people are gonna start buying stuff. I am SO excited to be having a girl because I love girls, but I'm gonna have to make sure our whole apartment doesn't go pink! I'm so excited for my little princess to be here.

So what's goin' on with the weather? First they said the cold front would be here like Monday, and it was HOT. Then they said it was gonna rain on Tuesday, and it was dry. Now the cold front is here and good grief is it COLD!!! The low tonight by 8 pm is 48 degrees! BRRRRR!!! You can say "oh it's not that bad," but on a motorcycle, it feels like 42!!! You gotta admit, that's cold. Oh well, at least it's starting to feel more like a holiday-ish season. I like it to be cold for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yeah, that took like two minutes just to color the words... So what? You like it cold, too. Who wants it to be t-shirt weather while you're eating turkey dinner or opening presents? Yeah, it stinks. Granted, once the holidays are over, I like it to heat back up a little bit. I'm thinking my perfect day in temperatures would be upper 50's in the morning, mid-70's in the afternoon, and lower 60's at night. A light jacket at most during the day, and snuggle weather with the wife at night. How about you? What would your perfect temperature be? It's different for everybody.

So I guess that's all for now - I'm trying to stay more current with my posting like I used to be, and I'm trying to post on all three blogs today. If you don't know the other links, they're http://brokenandrebuilt.blogspot.com and http://bikesilike.blogspot.com so check 'em out if you want. Later,

$

MEEP MEEP!!!

2007-11-05T10:55:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so I learned something today - don't drink two cups of SUPER strong coffee in the morning without eating something first. I am WIRED. If you read this stuff out loud as quick as you can, you'll have an idea how I'm feeling. Woo Hoo!! To add on to that, our system is down at work, so I can't do ANYTHING. I've only got like 2.5 minutes left till lunch, so I'll have something to do then. So how was your Halloween? Do anything? We didn't. Well, we hung out with people I think - I dunno, it was like five whole days ago, so that's hard to remember at this point. Had a pretty good weekend. What's up with the weather, huh? I mean, I thought a cold front was coming through, but the high today is like 85, and that is NOT cold. It's not anywhere near cold. It's like almost hot. That's just not cool. Sooooo yeah. Oh, we saw American Gangster on Friday, it was a really good movie, but don't take your children to see it. Violence and language and stuff, but the story line itself was pretty good. So anyway, it's lunch time now so I''m gonna go. Later!

$

Top Seven Office Pet Peeves

2007-10-30T09:45:00.000-05:00

Got this off Yahoo! today.

7. Misuse of work email. This includes pressing "Reply All" just to say "ok!." (22%)
6. Overuse of personal communication devices in meetings, i.e. cellphones, blackberries, PDA's. (28%)
5. Loud talking and obnoxious cell phone rings. No, we do not want to hear your cell phone's sound limit! (41%)
4. Odius food, perfume, or smoking smells. I could almost swear my last boss bathed in cologne. (42%)
3. Messiness in the breakroom, i.e. dirty dishes. (45%)
2. Poor time management while on the clock. That would be me right now! (54%)
1. Gossip. Or at least that's what I heard... (60%)

I'm Back

2007-10-30T06:46:00.000-05:00

My friends, my acquaintances, and all you other people who read this blog, I apologize that I have been gone for so long. Not that it really ruined your day to find the same post up for the last nine days, but sorry anyway. I have been very busy at work, and when I have been home I've been far too tired to post. I am therefore taking time out of my work day to post so that you won't feel forgotten.

Like I said, life has been very busy - I'm loving my motorcycle (duh). Melissa is doing well and the baby inside her is growing. We're supposed to find out next Tuesday if it's a boy or girl! Yay! Seriously, it's about time. Seems like forever. We've started going to Bradley birthing classes, and boy howdy do you learn a lot in there! For those of you that don't know, the Bradley Method is an all natural approach to childbirth. It's a whole lot better than using tons of drugs and crap that the hospital loves to hand out. Not bashing anyone who does it that way...necessarily, but just saying that naturally might be the better way...moving on. Yeah so these classes, the lady can TALK. She talked for three hours without barely breathing! Wow. She is very knowledgeable about this stuff. We then watched a video from the 80's on someone giving birth naturally, and yes, we got to see the whooooooole thing. (Shudder). It was cool cuz it's a miracle from God, but it's definitely not...entertaining or something to watch while eating. Like I said though, learned a lot.

So how bout this weather, huh? It's awesome! Granted, it is a little cold riding to work in the morning, but by lunch time it's absolutely gorgeous! I'd love it if it were always in the 60's-70's around here. Clear blue skies, no rain, all that wonderful stuff that some states not next to the Gulf can have. Only thing about this weather is that it's thrown my allergies for a loop. I've been stopped up really bad ever since it cooled down. That's the price I pay to enjoy it so I'm not complaining much.

How is school going for those of you in school? I'm making it and keeping good grades, but it's semi-exhausting. I'll be glad when it's over. Hoping and praying that once I have my 60 hours I can call HPD and get in! Seems like such a long time ago since we first started talking about doing that. Well, it was last year, so yeah, long time.

So here's something I can't believe - it's November 1 on Thursday! And Daylight Savings ends on Sunday! Why is it that the days crawl by, but the year is gone before you know it? I can remember- well ok I can't remember January that well, but I remember February and March like they were last week! On the other hand, November means Melissa's little brother is turning 15, so he can start driving with us, and it also means Thanksgiving dinner and the one football game of the year that I actually watch. Not that I care who wins, but I watch because Melissa's family bleeds orange and I have to watch.

So it's only Tuesday, but I'm approaching it believing that it's going to be a good day. Yesterday was one of the first truly enjoyable work days I've had since starting here! Sad I know. So I should get to work, but I hope you've enjoyed this post. If you have things to be addressed or discussed, leave a comment and I'll try to get to it tomorrow. Later,

$

Guess What...

2007-10-22T07:31:00.000-05:00

Yeah so I finally bought my motorcycle on Saturday! It's a 2008 Honda Rebel and it's black. It had 2.7 miles on it when I drove it off the lot. Very nice bike. Yes, it is the lowest power you can safely by in a motorcycle, but it's my first bike so I'm ok with it. For those of you worried about why I didn't buy a used bike, I can send you the 30 page list of things to inspect before buying a used bike, and you have to be a mechanic to check some of that. Oy. Anywho, drove it around a lot on Saturday and Sunday and drove it to work today. It's a lot different than it looks - it's not easy. Yeah, you get used to doing things like shifting and braking with your hand and your foot, but it's constant attention - no slacking like in a car. I'm not trying to insult all you car drivers, but I'm saying that I can't like take my eyes off the road or just sit at a stop light and fiddle with stuff or deal with other people, or be on my cell phone. Can't do it. Not saying I'm better than you, just saying it's different.
Anyway, how was your weekend? Mine was obviously pretty quick. See any movies? There isn't much out to see. I can't believe Bourne Ultimatum and Rush Hour 3 are still in theaters!! I know they were good, but that good? I dunno about that.

So yeah, I mostly just wanted to say I got my bike and I'm gonna be super careful. Gotta go. Later,

$

Zzzzzzz......

2007-10-17T14:46:00.000-05:00

I am tired today. Started out feelin' really good! Got like 9 hours of sleep last night which is insane for me. Couple things I'd like to say for starters and that will probably give me more crap to ramble about. First, the quiz at the top of the screen is totally rigged. The only reason I got Batman is cuz I went down and answered "no" to every question. If anyone actually takes the quiz, they're gonna get Superman. I tried a couple other patterns with my answers and got Iron Man and Super Girl, but still the quiz is rigged.

Also, y'all can talk about thanksgiving food all you want, but the best thanksgiving food is still Cheese Grits. You can't have Thanksgiving without them. You could have a festive day with family in November, but you couldn't call it Thanksgiving.

Hmm, yeah so I still have nothing really to talk about. Huh, figure that, me with nothing to say. If you see pigs flying, don't be surprised. Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow. Later,

$

Ouch

2007-10-15T07:49:00.000-05:00

So I'm really stinkin sore. I did a class this weekend learning how to ride a motorcycle, and while I had a blast, I'm really sore. There are muscles in your body that don't normally get used, and motorcycle riding uses them to the MAX. Ouch. Anyway, the class was awesome, and you finish with a huge sense of accomplishment, because a lot of that stuff they teach you is hard! I did great, and learned a whole lot, but still I am very sore. Ouch. Here's a picture of the bike we practiced on. It's a Buell Blast (Buell is owned by Harley Davidson). Pretty cool bike - 500 cc's, comfortable, and fairly neat looking. This is actually the color of the one I practiced on too. Although, now that I'm thinking about it, ours didn't have rear-view mirrors, but that's probably a good thing, because that would have been another thing to remember. There's a lot to think about when you're riding a motorcycle. Both hands and both feet have something to do the whole time. Still, most fun I've had on a weekend since I got married. Wasn't more fun than getting married, but a blast (see the humor? we rode Blast's...okay nevermind). How was your weekend? That was my whole weekend, so it seemed pretty short. I'm gonna try to go get my license this week I think (if I can find time). If you decide you want to learn how to ride, let me know, cuz if you go to the same place I did and mention my name, I can get a gift certificate to buy gear.

I tell ya, I'm just so GLAD to be back at work today. Just floored. Yeah, so I'm having trouble keeping track of time - I've already been here for an hour and thought it had just been 15 minutes, so I'm gonna go now, but I'll try to post more later. Prolly won't though. Oh well. Later,

Oh Friday, how I love thee

2007-10-12T08:19:00.000-05:00

Yeah not really. Friday's are becoming just like any other weekday. My Saturday's are always so busy that there's not really a weekend. If I'm not serving at church on Sunday I can sleep in till 9 or so, but that's the only day of the week I can sleep past 6:30. It gets old real quick, but that's life. Plus it won't always be this way. I'm starting to think that life is divided up into an endless amount of phases, and some feature of your life is a temporary one whether you realize it or not. For example, all this waking up early is a phase for now because after I get out of training with HPD, I'll prolly have to work nights for a while. Or if you're a parent, you think it's gonna be forever, but eventually your kids move out and even though you're still their parent, you're not responsible for taking care of them anymore. Always something temporary, so don't stress over stuff, cuz you never know what might be gone tomorrow.

So I haven't posted all week. Miss me? Yeah right. Anywho, don't really have that much to talk about. Been a busy week - lots of work - spent most of wednesday night at church - good times. Learned how to work the sound board at the youth building. I'm really excited to learn the differences on the big board over at the main church building.

You know, I just don't have that much to talk about for right now. Well, I have something to talk about, but I don't want to talk about it right now. Wait 'till next week, and you'll hear all about it. Later,

$

Whose Halfing Fun Two Dei?

2007-10-08T15:54:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so if you can't tell - I'm bored. I have lots to do today, but I'm bored nonetheless. That's a fun word to use - it's three rolled into one, and even though it's real, it looks fake. Just like nevertheless and stufflikethat. Ok, the last one was fake, but you get my point. What point, you ask? Why that's exactly the point - there is no point. If you're shaking your head, don't worry, you're going to do it again before you finish reading this post. Unless, that is, you stop reading right now...

So today's been normal - worked, had some coffee, went to lunch, ate waaay too much, worked some more, talked to people... Oh, have you ever watched or read The Phantom Tollbooth? If you are my wife, you're probably sick of hearing about it, but I got to thinking about it last week, and last night I found it on YouTube. That's right, I found the entire movie. Of course, it was in fourteen different parts, but it's the whole thing. It's from 1969, so if you go look it up, don't expect a work of art. It's pretty good though. Watched it for the first time like ten or twelve years ago, and I can't remember why I started thinking of it again, but I did, so there. See? Again with the shaking of the head. I told you.

Did you see the news story about the cop up north who killed six people? Someone said it was over a girlfriend or something immature and stupid like that. Couple things about that. First, he was only 20. Why was he on the force that young? I know there's not a lot of difference between twenty and twenty-one, but it's still something. Also, though it makes me sick to read the story, it makes me even sicker to see that it was a cop. Law Enforcement in America is already given a hard enough time about tasers and "police brutality." Was it worth killing people to get back at his girlfriend or whoever? No it wasn't. Crazy, stupid, messed up world we live in.

Kinda hard to believe it's already October. Doing anything for Halloween? We're not. Well, ok, I take that back, I am going to Walmart the day afterwards to take advantage of all the cheap candy, but other than that, we're not doing anything. I don't really have a point to make with that, just thought I'd mention it while I'm typing the rest of this pointless crap. Speaking of crap, if you want to cure someone of fast food, have them watch Fast Food Nation. Don't watch it with them because it's gross. Don't tell them it's gross either, unless you know they'll come beat you up for not warning them. Also not a good movie for pregnant people to watch since they're already nauseous enough.

Right, so I thought I'd check the public opinion by doing a simple Google search. I typed in "crazy people," and this was the second picture that popped up. That's Michael Jackson if you can't tell. You gotta wonder sometimes about people, cuz you see what they'll do just to stay in the spotlight. What makes them want to do that? Is there reason behind Britney's madness or OJ's "innocence?" I don't think there possibly could be. It's funny, too, (well, sorta) cuz if you look at the weirdest people in the world, most of them started off just fine. Perhaps they just started off too soon in the spotlight. The Olsen twins and Lindsay Lohan strike me right off the bat. They were famous sooo early, that by the time they came into all their money and popularity, it was just too much to handle, and they crashed. Lindsay Lohan has literally crashed several times, but we won't go into that. I used to think I wanted to be a movie star, but can you imagine how awful that must be? They can't do anything without a camera or ten spying on them! Yeah, I get upset sometimes because they're way overpaid, but I feel so sorry for them at the same time, because they have no private life! What makes Americans so desperate to know everything about JT or Britney or J-Lo? Personally, my life is way too interesting and busy to be obsessed with celebrities. Ok, off that soapbox now.

Well, I've only got one hour left to go at work, so I'm stopping now. Later,

School again!

2007-10-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

This is more of a test post than anything else. I imported this blog into Facebook, so I'm seeing how good it is at updating regularly. If you are reading this, visit my actual blog moneydude524.blogspot.com and let me know! I'm at school right now in class or I'd do a longer post.

By the way, I did something stupid yesterday, and yes, this is so obviously something I would do. I bought a coffee maker for my desk at work. It's a small, four-cup unit just for personal brewing. It's great, cuz in five minutes I have two cups of coffee. Anyway, I was thinking that since I only paid $13 for it, that maybe it wouldn't be super hot. I mean, seriously, how good can a cheap walmart coffee maker be?? Well my friend, let me tell you it makes a HOT cup of coffee. I figured that out by burning every taste bud off my tongue. Stupid move, I know, but hey, it's me! Later,

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Friday Fun

2007-10-05T14:54:00.000-05:00

I'm into alliteration and I don't know why. Oh well. So google has this thing you can do now that's almost like a game. It gives you a time limit and a partner that you don't know and can't communicate with. It then shows you pictures and has you start putting in suggestions until the two of you duplicate an answer. For example, if it put up a picture of alaska, you might say, "state," "alaska," "cold," etc. It keeps going until you and your partner have guessed the same word. Once you get that picture you get another one and you keep going till you run out of time. it's fun too because you get points, i'm just not sure how. Anyway, you're wondering where I'm going with this. At the end, it shows you the pictures you worked on, and it shows your partener's words. I just thought this one was funny. I couldn't tell what the picture was, and apparently my partner couldn't either:

passed
www.codinghorror.com
Partner's guesses:computer, chat, wtf is it, i cant see it, omg, i hate you google

I just thought his/her answers better reflected our frustration than my guess of "website."

Anyway, I'm pretty sure you have to be really bored to find it entertaining, but if you want to do it, go here: http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/ and enjoy.

So other than that, Friday's going normally, I'm still at work, and probably will be till 5:30 or 6. I'll try to update my Facebook tonight for those of you that care. Later,

$

Whoosawhatsit?

2007-10-04T07:39:00.000-05:00

Sooo, couple things to mention, then I'll just type till I get bored or interrupted or bored enough to get interrupted... Hmm.

So anyway, had an interesting evening last night. I volunteer with the Tech Arts ministry at our church when I can, usually doing camera work. James also helps with the Tech team, only he knows how to do almost everything. Everett (the guy in charge) wants us to come over to the new youth building and work tech team over there. I couldn't figure out why at first. He said he needs people over there to push the quality up. Right now, they're working with the same equipment as the adult building, but the quality level of production is lacking. Like I said, I only do camera work, so James had to teach me a lot of stuff last night. I learned a whole lot, though, and feel comfortable using what he showed me. I'd need more training before I started using the same equipment at the big building just because there are more eyes watching, and even more important, more experienced eyes. We had a couple rough spots last night, but what we helped to put out was apparently lots better than what they've been getting, so that was encouraging to us. I had a good time learning and seeing how things work.

Thing-to-talk-about number Two. I read a news article this morning that and European company is coming out with a gum that's not sticky! I'll give you a minute to recover from that.......... Enough time? I know. Now I'm thinking a couple things. First, what?? Second, who actually put time and energy into that thought? Seriously, who just suddenly says, "I think gum shouldn't be sticky anymore...I'll change it!"? It must be a big problem in the UK, because they spend like three million a year cleaning gum off the streets and park benches and stuff. What are they doing to clean it off? Does it cost $1000 to pay someone to run a paint scraper down the underside of your tables? If so, I'd take that job. It'd pay better than what I do now. There are a few problems with this gum though. The biggest fault I'm seeing? It's water soluble. Enjoy your gum, but don't take a sip of water, cuz there goes your gum. Who thought up that idea? And, how can it be water soluble, but your spit doesn't dissolve it? Sounds a little fishy to me. Speaking of fishy, wouldn't it be a great practical joke if someone could create bad-tasting gum that looks normal? Can you imagine if there was someone you didn't really like, or someone you just wanted to play a joke on. You give them a piece of gum, they start chewing it, and realize it tastes like green beans, or sweaty socks, or fish sticks or ooh, pepto bismol? That would be funny. Of course, you'd have to keep track of which pack of gum that was, cuz it wouldn't be a funny self-inflicted joke.

So I just wasn't happy with the picture of the motorcycle that I put up earlier, so I went back to the store and took a pic of it with my phone. This is it. I think it's pretty sweet, and it will be just what I need to get around town. Still don't know all the details, but would love it to work out. Just so y'all know, I'm mostly putting this up cuz my wife said she liked it when I put pics up here, and she would have hated it if I put a pregnancy pic of her up here, so I put the bike. Moving on...

Believe it or not, I think I'm out of stuff to say for now, so, later.

Hullo, Hello, Hallo!

2007-10-03T09:23:00.000-05:00

Good morning and good day to you! It is Wednesday, in case you hadn't noticed. I'm trying to be positive about today and stay in good spirits, and so far it's working! It also helps that I'm counting down the hours until I can leave, and updating it every half hour makes time fly by! How is your week going so far? I hope it's going well. The first couple days of this week weren't so great, but what Monday is ever that great? Unless of course any of my children are ever born on a monday, that wouldn't be so bad.

Speaking of children, we had another doctor's appointment yesterday and everything seems to be going fine. The baby is growing normally, as is Melissa's tummy, but she's looking pregnant, so it's so adorable. We get to go back in three weeks for a check up, and three weeks after that we'll find out whether it's a boy or girl!

So I had a bright idea yesterday... I say I had because, well, it "it was a good plan...until now." That's from POTC 1, for all you unsalty people. Garr. Anyway, I got a facebook last week, and I've been going through finding people I used to know. I've found 25 or 26 people so far, and last night I got the bright idea of poking all of them to see who would poke back. And it's great too, because I get the messages on my cell phone so I don't even have to be at a computer! Problem is, everyone poked back...all through the night. I think the last text message I got was at 2:30, which is almost funny, because my wife jokingly predicted that I would. On the other hand, I guess it's nice to know that people check their Facebook often, so if for some reason I needed to contact somebody, I could do it pretty quickly.

Don't get me wrong - I like Facebook now that I've found several people. What surprises me is that people keep finding me. It's cool when people find you, because doesn't that mean they wanted to find you? I mean, it seems to me like you'd have to be looking for them. Unless they were looking through their friends' friends list, saw you, and figured "hey, what the heck, ADD." I dunno. What will be more interesting, I think, is how many people I "know" on Facebook are actually interested in staying connected, or whether they just want a longer friends list than everyone else. I suppose that remains to be seen.

I do have one sad thing to point out about this post - I started writing it almost four hours ago. I keep getting interrupted, but then again, that's probably because I'm at work. I better go. Later,

$

Number 3 coming up...

2007-10-01T08:26:00.000-05:00

So how was your weekend? Was it everything you dreamed it would be? Yeah, uh huh, keep lying to yourself. Weekends in this country are so rarely a true time to relax like they should be. Weekends are now when everybody gets out to do all the stuff they didn't get to during the week. I know - we do it too. I did have one interesting thing happen this weekend... The fire alarm went off at school (college). Somebody in a Chemistry lab spilled some stuff, so they set off the alarm as "a precaution." Yeah, you know they so enjoyed that. Long story short, we ended up getting out of class 55 minutes early, so I got to go home and watch a movie before my next class. That was a little relaxing, but my wife was not at home, so it could have been better.

So we have pregnant doctor visit number three tomorrow! I have no idea what happens at this visit. We have heard the hearbeat, and seen the ultrasound, we don't find out what it is till next visit, (I mean whether it's a boy or a girl - we KNOW it's a baby). Of course, she is already 16 weeks, and I read somewhere that sometimes they can tell by week 15... Then again, they are more likely to be wrong the earlier they test, and we don't (well, I don't) want to take our boy home in pink anymore than we want to take our girl home in blue. We can wait another four weeks to find out what it is. It will be nice to know, because that way we can pick a name and not tell anybody! Ha ha. There are only like two, maybe four people we will tell, and you know who you are. If you're wondering "Is that me?" then no, it's not you. Like I said, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. :)

Ugh, so many good movies out. I need to go see some. Even more than that, I need to go to the shooting range. It's been a month and a half, and they say that you should go at least once a month if not twice to maintain your skills. Oy. If only I had time...

Sooo, I'm gonna go work, cuz I get paid to, and it would be a shame to not earn that money. Of course, they'd still give it to me if I worked a half-day. "Cuz, even if you only play a half-game, you still get the whole snow-cone. You don't get half a snow-cone, so, yeah, I'd- I'd rather play- I'd rather play half-game. Still get the whole snow-cone." Watch brian regan videos if you don't know what I'm talking about... Later,

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A new definition of stupid

2007-09-28T07:05:00.000-05:00

Ok, before I start, let me say that I finally got a facebook, but I will only be checking it and/or responding on it once a week. It is simply so people will stop begging me to get one. My personal favorite is still this blog thing.

Ok, so check out this news story I found.

HARRISON, N.Y. - Even the dead apparently have to pay the fines on their overdue books at one Westchester County library. Elizabeth Schaper said she was charged a 50-cent late fee while turning in a book that her late mother had checked out of a Harrison Public Library branch.

WHAT??? This is typical of libraries, though. Well think about it, how else are they gonna make money? I asked one time, and the lady said that they charge late fees to...inspire people to return books on time, because there might be someone else waiting for them. Ha. I usually need a book for a week longer than the check out time, so maybe if they increased the possible check out time, more people would return on time. I'm not going to the library any more, because they are saying I didn't return a book that I checked out last year, and they want $40. I'm not paying that cuz I know I returned the book. That's a load of crap. Forty bucks for a book? I checked the price on that book cuz it's somehting I do, and it was $8.75!! What kind of crazy profit are they trying to pull?? That's like a 400% profit. Crazy librarian people. Mother, I can say this and not offend you, cuz you usually waive your fees, and they're soooooo cheap at that. No worries.

So it's finally Friday. About time. Slow week this week. On the other hand, I have a paper due tomorrow that I'm not very excited about... My calendar also says I have an exam, but the teacher hasn't talked about studying or preparing or anything, so I'll read over my notes again tonight, but I'm thinking the test has been moved a week away. I could be alright with that. I think I'm gonna try to head out to the range this weekend. I haven't been in over a month, and that's bad for accuracy. Maybe tomorrow after school... We'll see.

What's your favorite TV show? I will always say Friends, even though it's not on the air anymore. I own the entire show including bloopers, commentaries, interviews, the whole thing. I love shows like House, CSI, Numbers, not so much the sitcoms. Most sitcoms out today get their humor from making husbands into lazy and stupid oafs, and I think it's wrong to demean them so. If they're not making fun of husbands, it's parents in general. The kids run the house, and I don't agree with that, either. By the way, did you catch the typo two paragraphs ago? Hmm. I think I'm gonna go now. Later,

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Ugh

2007-09-27T13:37:00.000-05:00

So you know what really ticks me off? When you call people in Baytown, you have to dial a one before the number. Seriously? It's a 281 area code!! You shouldn't have to dial a one. It's not really that big of a deal, but I hate getting the stupid voice "Dee Doo Dee! We're sorry, you must first dial a one or a zero before dialing this number. Will you please hang up and try your call again." GAAARRRRR!!!! Plus, you know they're not really sorry... Whatever, one day, they will be sorry.

I love Laffy Taffy. It's gooey, but doesn't stick to your teeth like Starburts or Now or Laters. Plus, you get two great jokes on the outside of the package. You can tell this is obviously the most exciting part of my day. Just a normal work day. Lots of orders to enter.

I started reading a new book! It's called Madman by Tracy Groot. I'm only throught the first chapter, but it's good so far... We'll see. Hey, what's the worst last name you've ever heard? I can't really think of one, but I was thinking about how many different ways you can make fun of our last name, and I wondered who has the worst last name in the world. Either hard to pronounce, or easy to make fun of, like Roach or Butts. Lemme know what you think.

I don't have time to post much right now, cuz I've got lots of stuff to be doing, but I did put up another poem. If you haven't read that blog yet, check it out. I've only had three requests, and two came from the same person. Later,

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Second Place

2007-09-26T09:45:00.000-05:00

Soooo, James posted before I could today. If you are one of the few people I know who don't know James, click here. BUT READ THIS POST BEFORE YOU READ HIS. We are entertaining a new idea. I say entertaining, because there are still a few things that would need to happen ahead of time, but here it is: Motorcycles. Before you freak out or go on a rant about the dangers of motorcycles, we have thought about all that stuff. We are looking at them from the standpoint of cheaper insurance, less money spent on gas, and plus we can get a new motorcycle for the price of a very cheap used car, and the motorcycle wouldn't need maintenance every thousand miles. So, again, I say entertaining the idea, because several things need to fall into place for it to work. I have found a bike I like, and James has found a few he likes, and hey, we'll see what happens.

This is the one I like...

This is another nice one.

This one's a little more expensive though - it's the upgrade for the one above it.

So anyway, this week is going slow, but I need to get going. Later,

Good Morning!

2007-09-25T06:37:00.000-05:00

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNN. Soooo tired. Hey, good thing happened yesterday, we got to hang out with James and Lynne. That hasn't happened very much lately, cuz we've all been so busy. It was nice to see them. Still four days to work this week, so still quite a way to go. Yesterday was a pretty long day, and I don't know what today will be like.

Phillip, you asked about my other other blog, that's where I post when I'm mad at the world. For the rest of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, you'll eventually figure it out. Otherwise, you just weren't meant to read it.

Into the world of dreams. What the heck to they mean?? I have some of the weirdest dreams, and the worst part is that at the time, they seem to make perfect sense, even if they're completely opposite from real life! Sometimes I have scary dreams, though not quite as often anymore. Sometimes I just have odd dreams, where something from real life is majorly distorted, and maybe during the dream, that one thing seems to be great, but then I wake up and wonder, "what was I thinking??" I know that in the Bible, people were called upon to interpret dreams, and that the Lord spoke through many dreams, but I'm thinking that some of my dreams are more food inspired than God inspired. If they do have a deeper meaning, I'd love to hear them. Someone once said that dreams are our body's way of sorting out the events from the day before. I can see that sometimes, although I still don't like the way my mind goes about doing it. The ones that get me the most are when they involve actual people I know as opposed to just a general character. I don't usually have cheerful dreams anymore. I used to have lots of happy dreams, and they just don't show up anymore. Wonder why...

Dreams or not, I am having an extremely hard time staying awake today. I'm having to fight to keep my eyes open and my hands moving on the keyboard. I should sleep more. Later,

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Monday!

2007-09-24T07:33:00.000-05:00

So, how was the weekend for you? Mine was long in that I didn't get more than six hours of sleep per night, but short in that it's already over.

So I saw in the news that Marcel Marceau died. Supposed to be a really famous mime or something. The only other time I've heard of him was a mention in a Friends episode.

So what's on the plan for this week? I'm thinking work and sleep. Don't you just hate it when you are busy all weekend, so it feels like you don't even get one? If you haven't checked my other blog, brokenandrebuilt.blogspot.com then you should. It's only got two posts on it right now, but I'm working on putting up a third - Lynne requested a long poem, and I am determined to get the whole thing on there. Don't worry, it's not near as long as Song of Hiawatha. Anybody like CSI: Miami? Season premiere is on tonight, looks good. Did you know that the top five movies in the box office right now are rated R? Pretty sad isn't it? When's the last time the top five had even three decent children's cartoons or something? When's the last time the top five movies were rated G? Who knows. Now, it's not necessarily all bad, I want to see three of the top ten right now, and they have violence for the R rating, but it's still not something we can take kids to. I wish they'd come out with more "Rated E for Everyone" type movies.

Quick, leave a comment right now and tell me what book you're reading. You can finish reading the post later, leave a comment now.

Did you do it? WELL GO DO IT!!!

...do it yet? OK.

Yeah, so that's all I had to say... I'm trying really hard to stay awake, cuz they don't approve of sleeping at or under your desk. Later,

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Weekend!!

2007-09-22T08:04:00.000-05:00

So what's up? Have you checked out my other blog? It's not meant to be hugely entertaining or informative, it's just a way to keep track of good literature. I'll be putting poems, quotes, perhaps a short story or two, and some scripture. Let me know your favorite authors, and I'll put some of their stuff up there.

I was gonna make this a nice long post, but my teacher finally showed up, so I'm gonna have to cut it short. TTYL,

$

I have a second blog for you to enjoy...

2007-09-21T08:16:00.001-05:00

only for poetry, short stories, stuff like that.

CLICK HERE

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Friday and about time

2007-09-21T06:51:00.000-05:00

I......am tired. Exhausted. I need more sleep. I slept like a rock again last night, but oh, how early 5:45 comes, expecially when you when to bed at 12:30. We stayed out too late, as usual, but we had a good time. Have you ever been to comedy sportz? It's a modified stand-up comedy routine, and very funny. We went last night, cuz James and Lynne got tickets somehow. It was very enjoyable. So only 8.5 hours to go in my workday, how 'bout you? Not that many? More? Oh well, it's Friday at least. klllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

oh, sorry, that was me falling asleep. i am tired, so i'm gonna stop this post and try to find something to wake me up. have a good friday.

$

Thursday is here!

2007-09-20T06:47:00.000-05:00

I am tired. T-I-R-E-D. I actually feel asleep last night at 10:30. Didn't go to sleep, no no, fell asleep, meaning I couldn't keep my eyes open. Guess that means I'm not getting enough sleep, cuz I'm still exhausted this morning. (sidenote) I hate allergies.

So, did you read that Barry Bond's 756 carreer home run baseball was sold for 750,000? Yeah, that's just plain stupid. 3/4 of a million? You know all the different things you could do with that? Buy a house, pay off cars, send kids to college, buy big gun collection and diamonds for your wife...(I love you, Honey) I mean the options are almost endless, and Mr. Smart Guy bought a baseball. Moron.

Remember when Dan Rather made a really bad report about President Bush in 2005? Then later he came on and publicly apologized for the false information? Then a few months later he "retired?" Yeah, he's suing CBS for $70,000,000. No job loss is that significant unless you're an actor or sports player, and if you are, you're getting paid too much anyway, so deal with it. Sheesh.

So hows the week going? Mine? Oh, not too bad. I'm hungry right now, but I didn't bring breakfast, so what do I expect? I'd say I can't wait for the weekend to get here, but I'm gonna have such a busy weekend, it's just gonna be like two more work days. Doing different stuff for sure, but still doing stuff all day saturday and sunday. Oy. The weekend after this might not be so bad. Wanna hear something dumb? It is the middle of September in Houston, and I'm wearing a hoodie in work. They like to keep it COLD in here. I'm all for AC when it's hot, but to make it cold on purpose? Who thought up that bright idea?! Later,

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Stupid People

2007-09-19T07:36:00.001-05:00

Yeah, so I saw one of the stupidest things last night. We got fantastic seats to an Astros game last night ($200/ticket), and of course they lost, just like the last 9 out of 13 games. However, bottom of the ninth, three fans ran onto the field! The first guy made it all the way from First to Shortstop before getting (literally) thrown to the ground. The second guy didn't make it past first base, and the third person, a girl, started to run, saw the first two get caught, and changed her mind. She went back into the stands, and a cop followed her and dragged her back out. I'm sure they had fun, but that's a Class B Misdemeanor. For more info on how that works, check out James and Lynne's Blog - www.jamesandlynne.com - James is the FOK of our group (that stands for Fountain Of Knowledge), and he'd love to tell you all about the penalties of doing that. Bottom line, never charge the field, because the city will charge YOU.

So what's up? How's the week going? Almost half way over, huh? It has been a looooong week already or at least it feels like it. I'm rather amazed at how slow everything is going. On the other hand, I have a ton of stuff to do this week. Study for a test, finish a presentation and give it, go to school for 8 hours, and work at church tonight and sunday for a total of 10 hours i think. I think I'll sleep a lot on Sunday night, cuz I'm gonna be exhausted. Why am I telling you all of this? I feel like it. Hey, if you don't wanna read it, then don't. Just sayin...

I feel like I should write more, but I'm also trying to stay awake, and I'm not doing too well. It took me five minutes to type that last sentence cuz I keep spacing out. So.....yeah.....I'm gonna go now. Later,

$

Monday

2007-09-17T07:24:00.000-05:00

So it's Monday again, how was your weekend? Mine was pretty good. Of course, I had school on Saturday, and lunch with the in-laws on Sunday, but the weekend was pretty good. I did a daring thing last night - I gave myself a haircut. Yeah, it's pretty short. Let's put it this way - I shaved two days ago, and the hair on my face is the same length as the hair on my head. I like it better this way. It's easier to deal with.

Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to go through life with God's help as opposed to doing it on your own? I'm not saying that He makes life all hunky-dory and picture perfect, but it's easier to deal with all the crap the world throws at you. He even tells us that His way is easier: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." - Matthew 11:28-30. It's incredible the difference it makes when you just give all your problems to God and ask Him to take control. You can try living on your own, and you get along...decently. In the end, though, it comes to overpower you, and all the sudden you're drowning in a sea of hopelessness. What to you do? Return to the Lord, and bow at his feet. You'll always be amazed at the difference it makes.

So what's on the agenda for this week? I have to work on a paper and a group project for my college classes (bleh), and I get to work on Tech Team at church again! It seems like it's been forever since I got to help, when in reality it's only been three weeks. When you go three weeks without even seeing something, it feels like a long time.

Pastor Sal talked about something yesterday that I'm going to have to work on. The Bible tells us to "love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us". That means loving those that we otherwise might despise. I have a coworker like that. Sal pointed out though that if we cannot love that person, then we don't really love God, because God is love, and if we love Him and are following Him, we are called to love everyone. Certainly, there's no way we can love everyone with His agape love, because we're not perfect, but I'm sure gonna try at least with this one person. Oy.

So once I finally got a Myspace (out of sheer boredom), and now everyone says they don't use Myspace anymore, and that Facebook is the popular thing now. I went to Facebook, but they wouldn't approve my name. How stupid is that? So I'm not doing that. At least not for a while. Anyway, better get to work. Later,

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Finally Friday again

2007-09-14T07:16:00.000-05:00

Have you ever overslept?? I did that this morning. I wanted to be up at 5:45 so I could get to work by 6:30, and instead I woke up at 6:38. I didn't get to work til 7:11. I hate that cuz then you start out your day stressed out. Looks like I'll just have to work till 6 to make up my time today. So what's up for the weekend? Anything exciting? I'm going to school and then to get a haircut, and maybe the shooting range. It's been two weeks, so I'd really like to. It's so easy to lose the touch if you don't practice regularly.

So I saw that the Patriots have been cheating. This is starting to confirm my opinion that the current age of adults (30-45/50) are only about 1/4 adults and the other 3/4 are just kids that never grew up. Crap like cheating is from like 3rd grade! Gee whiz, is people aren't cheating, they're complaining because they're not getting what they want fast enough, or they don't want to pay the consequences just because they did something wrong. I used to think it would be so great to be an adult, but now that I've got a foot in the door, I'm not too impressed! With all the adults acting this way, how are the next generation of young people supposed to respect us, the new generation of adults? I can tell you how...they're not! Good grief, grow up, people. If I just offended you, either count yourself in the 1/4 group, or move on.

So I want to see the new Jodie Foster movie. It looks good. I've liked her as an actress since she was in One Little Indian. Ever seen that movie? It's got James Garner when he was still young and semi good looking. It's not that great of a movie, but it's an older one, and you might enjoy it. Alright, so I got bored last night, and now I have a Myspace. it's not much, but it's functional. I'll put more stuff on it the next time I get bored. Could be tonight, might be next month, we'll see. I'm not gonna keep up with it like I do this post. If you want baby info, check the blog.

Ever have one of those people that feel the need to tell you everything? They want to share everything that's happened in their life, and their opinion on everything. And then it's like you seem to remember all the crap they "share" with you, so everytime they start talking again, even though you hate it, you know what they're talking about. And then, in order to not be rude, you have to at least partially pay attention so you can nod at the right time, or make a comment here and there. Better get to work. Later,

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Thursday's Thoughts

2007-09-13T15:05:00.000-05:00

Not much to say today, just felt like putting something up here. So we had some guests over last night that stayed waaaaaay too late. JUST KIDDING. It was James and Lynne (and Isaac), and they can never stay too late. We started a movie at 10:30. That was the first mistake, especially considering how old we are; we just don't have that youthful stamina that teenagers enjoy. So anyway, I finally woke them up at 11:30, cuz Lynne was asleep on one couch, Melissa on another, and James and Isaac on the floor. It took a while to wake up our wives, but they do a lot, so it's understandable that they were exhausted. I tell ya, getting to work at 6:30 in the morning is starting to get to me. I thought it would get easier as I kept doing it, but no. It's just as hard every morning. I have to convince myself to get up. I've found one thing that helps though. I set my alarm one hour earlier than I need to, so when it goes off, I can give myself the luxury of another hour of sleep. I know it might not make sense to you, but it feels kind of like I'm giving myself more sleep that way. I don't have to get up right away, I can snooze for a whole extra hour! Yeah, so it made sense to me...

So the week's going by pretty fast huh? Did you see that Lamborghini put out a new car? Yeah, called the Reverton (whatever). It's pretty cheap, only 1.4 Million dollars. Oh, that's before tax. They're only going to make 20 of them, and they sold out in 4 days. that's disgusting. sooooo much money for a freakin' car. sheesh. Don't get me wrong - it's a gorgeous car and I'd love to have one, but for 1.4 mil, I could do so many other things like buying a house and putting my kids through college and buying my wife lots of diamonds. I can't imagine spending that much money on anything really. I could spend a hundred thousand in an afternoon, but a million-four is a LOT. If you don't believe me about the hundred thou, leave a comment, and i'll make a list. It's scary how much money I could spend with the ability. maybe that's why I'm not a millionaire. Here's an interesting question... other than a house, what's the most expensive thing you want, or would buy if money (or rather a lack of it) was no hinderance. Don't forget to vote on the poll. You can select multiple answers this time. Better get back to work. Later,

$

Been a while...

2007-09-12T10:09:00.000-05:00

I would classify today as a bad day. I think I really would. I know it's been a while since I posted, and again, I apologize. I've been working overtime (finally), and haven't had an opportunity to post. Not that I've had much to post about. Been very boring and average week so far. Only interesting thing I can think of is that my parents bought a new entertainment center and gave us their old one. That's actually a really good thing, because I always kinda hoped I'd get it if they ever got rid of it. It gets better - they gave us the old stereo system, too. I've been wanting that ever since they bought it. The entertainment center is special because my dad made it, and it's really nice. Hard to find one like it. So I've meet both of my teachers for this semester, and I'm not overly impressed with either one. Sociology guy has been teaching for ten years, and he's already made it clear that he's not gonna be nice. Our speech teacher comes to class in her pilates outfit (soooo unproffessional), and wouldn't let us use our computers. She later explained it's because we don't need to take notes (all tests are take home - bleh). She's not the brightest lightbulb in the building though. She made a statement that all relationships end - even the relationship we have with ourself. What?! What a load of modern day crap. What about Jesus? our connection to Him never ends. And our souls are eternal, too, so HA. I'm always sooooo impressed with the teachers at Cy-Fair. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate cheap education, but they're not really terrific teachers for the most part. I've had a couple I really liked, but only a couple.

I am quite sure that someone is having a more interesting week than me. Please tell me about it. Heck, I'll even include it in the next post so all ten of you can see it! That would be exciting, right? Hey, work with me here, I'm trying to keep a depressing post somewhat interesting. Talk to me. Later,

$

Saturday! Finally!

2007-09-08T07:51:00.000-05:00

Soooooooo. Long week, huh? I know I haven't posted in forever and to those of you who were actually disappointed, I apologize. It has been a very long and stressful week, and I haven't been able to post at work, and then by the time I got home, I would be too tired to do anything but sleep and spend time with melissa.

So, I already said work was long - we had inventory this week, and I can't tell you how glad I am that crap is over with. We did it differently this year - no precounting (that means we count everything before we start, and then count it again when we begin the actual inventory). It worked a lot better, and went a lot faster, so instead of being at work this morning, skipping school, and finishing inventory, I'm sitting in a hall at school waiting for my teacher who has 20 minutes left before I leave, and not missing work one bit. You know something that really ticks me off? When your boss discriminates against you cuz you're the youngest person in the building. It's like when they say no to you, and yes to someone else just because that other person is 20 years older than you. Totally makes my blood boil. "I'm like a tornado of ANGER! Swirling about!" (thank you Will Ferrell).

Anybody see any good movies this week? If so, please tell me, cuz I really want to go see 3:10 To Yuma, and I don't know if it would be worth it. So I guess mostly I only wanna hear from you if you saw that movie. You could respond with another movie though and I wouldn't be mad... Anway...

What's on the activity plan for ya this week? I'm doing school and school and sleeping and sleeping, and eating... yeah, not much. James and Lynne and Isaac are out of town on the camping trip we missed cuz I had inventory... :( They'll be back sometime Sunday I think, so that will be nice.

Ok, it's 8, the teacher is officially late. Big surprise. You know, it's sad, I had a bunch of sarcasm and negativity to share with you yesterday while I was at work, but now that it's Saturday, I'm all clean and fresh! This is not normal - I'm not sure I like it. Hmm....

So I was looking at the World yesterday, and it STINKS!!!! How's that? Not good? OK. Wow there are some..... fruity looking people here at Cy-Fair. You really dont think about it that much until you're here and you think someone is a girl until they turn around, and then you're about 85% sure they're a guy. Weird.

Well, class is starting, so I'd better pay attention...NOT. Why pay attention in school?? Just kidding, honey. I'm paying total attention. Later!

$

Friday!

2007-08-31T07:09:00.001-05:00

7:10 am
Sooooo, yesterday was a weird post. I was in a funk most of yesterday, so if that seemed a little over the top compared to my normal posting, I'm sorry. I still mean what I said, but that's a little more serious than I usually care to be. This is going to be a day long post, so I'm going to put times down of when I post so you can see how the day affects me. I know you're so excited to see how it ends.
I have to talk about something. PRINCESS DIANA IS DEAD. I know it sounds cold and hard, but seriously, she's been dead for ten years, and I had never heard a thing about her before she died, which means (in my mind) that she couldn't have been that impressive of a person. I'm sorry that she died so young, but we all die, and it was just her time. Why are there people gathering again to mourn her passing? Seriously, do we all gather around on the day John Lennon was shot and mourn his passing? Do we all gather on the day Kennedy was shot and cry about it? No, because they died and time moves on. I don't understand it. If you think you can enlighten me or convince me otherwise, please let me know. If I just offended you, well, get over it. :)
Also saw that someone has invented a functional flying car. It floats ten feet off the ground, and looks like a flying saucer from a 1950's movie. It's kinda sad. I know eventually we'll all be flying around in our cars, but I think they should have waited to publicize this one. Plus you know what, I'd hate to have that thing flying over my car. Can you imagine that thing in heavy traffic? It just keeps going right into the intersection and all the sudden, everyone else wants that driver to die. and you know what else? I imagine that in a world of flying cars, there would be more accidents and more fatalities and a whole lot more traffic jams. I'll go with my ground-loving cars for now and leaving the flying to pilots.

7:30
What's your favorite movie and why? Mine is First Knight with Sean Connery, Richard Gere, and Julia Ormond. I'm not 100% sure why I love that movie so much, but I've lost track of how many times I've watched it, and I have the whole movie memorized. I used to be able to quote any part of the movie on request. If you started a quote, I could finish the movie from that point forward. I know it's not the best acting in the world, and certainly not the best props or costume design, but I like the story - plus it's got lots of sword fighting, and who doesn't like a little bit of that every so often? Let me know about your favorite!

8:34
Why do offices wait for a three day weekend to make you work late? This is supposed to be Labor Day weekend, and my wife's office is making her work tonight and tomorrow for inventory. That's just wrong. Same kind of thing they usually do when we get an extra day off for thanksgiving or christmas - we have to work that saturday. I'd go work for her if I could, but I wouldn't get paid for it, and she'll get paid overtime. Totally sucks.

10:29
Almost time for lunch... Don't know what I'm eatin today. Lots of stuff around the bank - I have to stop by and get out our rent check - that's important. Not a good thing to forget. Found out this morning that I should be getting transferred to our service department sometime in September. That will be really nice. We'll be able to save a lot of money on gas, cuz we'll just be using one car. Aah, a cheaper gas bill. That will be nice.

12:52 pm
Lunch was, I think, a disappointment (I finally spelled it correctly). I usually get in some good reading time (I'm working on another Stephen King novel), and today I only got 10 minutes. Oh well, at least tomorrow is Saturday. Seems like I had more to say at 7 this morning. Whattaya think of this new style, keepin track of the whole day? Well, because this is the first time, I won't bore you by keeping this up for the whole day. I'll stop now, and you let me know what you think. I'm thinking I may get a resounding NO from all of you who read this (that would be my relatives, james, lynne, and phil). But hey, that's more than nobody. Later,

$

Thursday

2007-08-30T10:05:00.000-05:00

What is a feeling?

May I suggest that it is a response, perhaps pre-programmed, to a given situation. You are given a gift, therefore you feel happy. Someone rear-ends your car, you feel mad. A pre-programmed one may be a feeling of fear when you prepare to walk into an empty house after midnight (I don't know why you would want to, but that's beside the point). If feelings are indeed a response, doesn't that mean we can or should be able to control them? In the Star Wars movies and countless others, people are told to "trust their feelings." However if a feeling is a response, that means it could be different each time a certain thing happens, therefore they are subject to change, and perhaps not so trustworthy. Would you go to someone for advice if you knew their answer would be different if you asked a second time? Hmm.

So can we really control our feelings? There are several places in the Bible were we are called to be self-controlled. I would think that includes controlling our emotions and our reactions to life. Not to say we should never get mad, "Be angry, and do not sin." (Ps. 4:4). It just means we shouldn't meditate on that anger and act on it. But maybe it also means we should be able to choose how we feel about something. We choose to get upset if something bad happens. That's a tough pill to swallow, especially when you're in the midst of a bad situation.

A question though. Can you choose to stop a feeling? Not necessarily like love or something, perhaps a feeling of animosity or loneliness or guilt. Negative feelings in general? Perhaps it's more than just stopping the feeling, it probably has to be replaced with a positive one. That makes sense if you realize that to get rid of dark, you have to replace it with light.

____________________________________

So that was my post this morning. I almost deleted it because it sounds so sermon-y. Oh well. How's your thursday going? Another normal work week over here, nothing too special happening over here. This weekend will be nice I think. At least nicer than some. Maybe just a little better. At least we get an extra day off. That will be nice.

I guess just not much else to say today, I just felt kind of obligated to post something since I know some of you faithfully check this every day. Thanks for that, and as always, comments are welcome. Later,

$

Meat (It's Tuesday, by the way)

2007-08-28T07:47:00.000-05:00

So what's up? Haven't been around in a couple days, but I've been very busy doing nothing. I'm kind of stuck on meat right now. You get to hear all about it, and then you can tell me what you think!

Take BEEF, it's the main meat, every good man food has BEEF. You can have it in 3 main forms: Ground, Roast, Lunch Meat. Then look at CHICKEN. You can have it in 3 main forms: Ground, Roast, Slab (like the rotisserie chickens at Kroger). What about PORK? Roast, Slab (like Ham), Lunch Meat, Bacon, Sausage! Last (at least in my list) is TURKEY. You can Roast it, Slab (like a chicken), Ground, and Bacon! Now, why is it that you can make TURKEY bacon, and PORK bacon, but you can't make BEEF Bacon or CHICKEN bacon? Would they taste that bad? You can make TURKEY bacon, and it's a bird, so why not CHICKEN bacon? Why is it that Roasted TURKEY and Roasted BEEF have the same consistency, but you can't just cook a chunk of BEEF like you can a TURKEY leg? Why can you grind PORK and BEEF, and one comes out Sausage, and one comes out still BEEF? They look the same, so why don't they tast the same? Why is it that ground CHICKEN and ground TURKEY don't look the same? Last for consideration, why is it that you can Roast a DUCK, have it look like TURKEY, and taste like BEEF?

Soooo, yeah, I thought about it a little bit. How was Monday? Was it nice to you? I hope so. Ever get those nights where you feel like you don't need to go to sleep? I had one of those on Saturday. We didn't get home till like 12:30, and I still had to shower and clean our guns, so I stayed up. I finished with that stuff at 2:30, and figured, 'well, I gotta be at church in 4 hours anyway, and that's not enough sleep for me, so i'll just stay up!' Well, I lasted till 5:30, and Melissa came in and had me turn off the movie and come to bed. So I slept for 1 HOUR and went to church. THAT is one of the stupidest things ever to do. You think four hours isn't enough? Well one hour is barely enough to fall asleep. I am still amazed I didn't fall asleep in my chair, and that would have been bad cuz I was working a camera. Then after church I went home and took a two hour nap, and that was dumb too. I woke up feeling sick. Oh well.

What's happening this week in the news? Nichole Richie sets world record for shortest jail sentence ever served, gains 30 pounds and adopts a pet gorilla! Paris Hilton makes a statement that she is not the most beautiful woman ever, and stops wearing pink! Britney Spears decided she wanted to get back with K-Fed, and have two more children. Angelina says "I want to have a baby!" She is calling Billy Bob Thornton as we speak. Hurricane Francisco forms in Gulf of Mexico, it looks like it may try to cross the border overnight. Hitler descendant starts 12th Reich in Luxembourg and forms watch line. Yeah, nothing exciting.

I should probably get back to work. It's gonna be a busy day. Later.

$

Thursday!

2007-08-23T08:02:00.000-05:00

Another week gone by, and so quickly! Today is movie quote day! I'm gonna list some and you see if you can guess the movie. I'll post the correct answers...never. Some of these are harder than others...

"Dude! Where's my car?"

"May the Force be with you."

"Snakes! I hate snakes!"

"Nobody makes me bleed my own blood! Nobody!"

"the twins keep us on centaurian time...standard 37 hour day. Give it a few months, you'll get used to it, or have a psychotic episode."

"Say hello to my little friend!"

"I didn't know who you were with."

"It's not personal, it's just business."

"I don't have any good skills."

"Madness? THIS IS SPARTA!!"

"Do you have protection?" "No, I don't believe in guns."

"You might have seen a housefly, maybe even a superfly, but I bet you ain't never seen a donkey fly!"

"I like what you done with that boulder. That is a niiiice boulder."

"All I've ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work."

"It is my intention to commandeer one of these ships, pick up a buccaneer crew in Tortuga, raid, pillage, plunder, and otherwise pilfer my weasly black guts out."

"I have a bad feeling about this."

"I'm sorry, I won't be here when you get back... my wife says I can't be a spy anymore. I have to be home for dinner."

I'll put more up here later. If you're really good, you'll leave a comment and tell me where all the quotes came from. There! It's an interactive blog! Later,

$

What a World

2007-08-22T12:28:00.000-05:00

Wednesday. The world turns. Various people are awake, various people are asleep... Yeah, I'm not happy. Why? I hate traffic. I hate driving. I hate being late. I can't stand those people that brake just to stay four car lengths behind the car in front of them. Or those people who brake before every bump in the road. Or those people that insist on driving the speed limit or slower in the fast lane. IT'S CALLED A FAAAAAST LANE!! Good grief. Then there are the people who wait till the last possible second to brake, and then they slam on their brakes, forcing you to slam on your brakes, and then you hope the person behind you is paying attention so they don't crash into your car. Why they gotta be like that? Why? I don't understand. Here's another thing I don't understand. Why do trains have to cross roadways? Why can't they all either be under ground, elevated, or why can't there be an overpass placed over the tracks? Trains are waaaay to slow to be blocking our main lanes of traffic. That and if they're going to cross the roads, they shouldn't be allowed to run during the day. If they want to operate between midnight and 6 am, that's fine, cuz if you're out on the roads at that time, you're either out past bedtime, a drug dealer, a night worker, a drunk, or a cop. If any of those people get stopped by a train, that's ok. They're out late anyway, and they can wait. Most of this is stemming from the fact that I hate being late. I left in plenty of time to get back to work on time, and i was 16 minutes late instead. Not that anyone could have changed anything, except the people involved in both accidents on 290, and the person driving the train that stopped me 1 block from the office.

So....how's your week going? Mine's going good - except for today of course. Melissa and I went to an Astros game, and she got a ball. It wasn't hit by an Astro, but it was pitched by an Astro, so she said that counts. Plus the tickets were free, so can't complain. We might go back again on Friday, but we'll have slightly better seats, so that will be nice. Maybe I'll even take my glove. If I can find it...

Can someone explain team loyalty to me? I don't have it. I have two baseball caps - they are both for the North Carolina Tarheels. Do I watch basketball? Never. Do I watch football? Only on thanksgiving day. Do I watch baseball? Never? Are there any other real sports? No. But, really, the only reason I wear tarheels hats is because I like the foot, and my dad is from North Carolina. I couldn't care less about their scores, stats, or whatever. I don't understand people who buy season tickets to a sport to support their city's team. I would buy season tickets for baseball because I enjoy watching a live game, but I would never do so expecting the team to win. I made a comment last night about the Astros, because I've never gone to a game and seen them win. I've watched them on TV, but in person, I've never seen them win. They've never won the World Series, though they did come close a couple times, and they usually just don't do that well anymore. Back ten years ago? Yeah, they were great, but now? No way. So when I see people paying good money to go see "their team" lose, I just don't understand why. Like I said, I'd pay money just to go watch baseball, because I love the sport, but I would never go expecting anything. Maybe it's just me.

Anybody seen any good movies lately? Tell me about them! I want to go see "The Last Legion." It looks good. I like war movies, and I like the Roman thing (empire, gladiators, swords, etc.).

Gotta get back to work. Later!

$

Mondee, Monday, Munday...

2007-08-20T10:31:00.000-05:00

How do you pronounce the weekdays? Do you say them with an "eeee" at the end? My grandparents do that sometimes. Sundee, Mondee, Tuesdee, etc. I always say it with the "ay" on the end (like normal). Doesn't really matter how you say it, just curious.

So did anybody save TONS of money during tax-free weekend? Yeah, I thought not.

The weekend seemed much longer this time! Really, we went to a hotel Friday night (provided by our wonderful friends James & Lynne (for our birthdays)). Saturday we went shopping (with money from melissa's dad, not me). That was fun, and then last night we hung out with James and Lynne again, and it just seemed like a much longer weekend than usual. I thought about looking through the news on Yahoo to find something to make fun of, but some of my readers have said that I sound too sarcastic. Maybe i'll put up a poll about it, and see how many of you really feel that way. Maybe I don't really care what you think. No, I do. That's why I do this blog, right? No, not really. I just wanted a place to put down my thoughts, and maybe interact with my friends, relatives, distant acquaintances... It works, right? I mean, it's a whole lot easier for me to manage than Myspace or Facebook. They just seem like a hassle. So many options to keep track of, and really when you think about it, they're just a waaaay too fancy email service. People leave you messages, you leave them messages....email. This, well this is just something I do because I can, and if nobody ever responds, that's ok, and if people do respond, I don't have to respond back! It's great. You should try it, and if you do, let me know your URL, and I'll check it out.

Have you ever wondered about all the memories and information that will be lost when the current generation of "old people" die? By old, I'm referring to people 70 and older. Once you hit that age, there's really no telling how long you have left. Not trying to be morbid, just explaining my terminology. But seriously, you'd have to be at least 80 to remember WW2, and 90 to really remember the Great Depression. What will we do when those first-hand accounts have been silenced? Another generation of history will be gone forever. It's really sad, but it really makes me want to record as many stories as I can so we have something other than history books to rely on. I remember quite a few that my grandfather has told me, but I want to get as many as possible so I can tell my grandchildren.

Well, it's time for lunch, I'll ttyl,

$

Friday...finally?

2007-08-17T07:58:00.000-05:00

May I just say that if you have a problem with my dog type ahem (Michael), How can you not love this face?

I received an interesting comment on the last post, so I thought maybe I'd respond to it. I was so happy to receive a couple comments answering my request yesterday, so the least I can do is acknowledge them. Someone commented on how I'm always eager for Friday to arrive. But why? Why do we spend the entire week yearning for it to end? Why rush through life so quickly? My default answer would be to get away from the office. For those of you that work in an office, or any full time job, or any stressful job, you know what I'm talking about. Not to exclude everyone else. I am quite sure that everyone has something that happens only or mainly during the week, and they view the weekend as a break. Certainly it is a break, but my friend's comment is making me think about a change in my viewpoint. Perhaps we should look to earning the weekend. I look at the weekend as my right to relax; a real chance to do whatever I want that has nothing to do with my normal work week. Maybe it's not a right... God never says to work five days and rest two. Genesis says he worked 6 days and rested on the seventh. Maybe He half-expects us to do the same? Maybe for those of us restricted to working five days a week, the weekend has been given to us as a blessing? And you know what else? I don't really know how much it helps to look forward to the weekend so eagerly right now. I'm only twenty-two years old. I have probably the next thirty-five to forty years to work at least. What good will it do me if I spend all 1,950 weeks looking forward to the next? It will go by quick as lightning, and at the end I will be left with...what? Another weekend, and another week to follow it. Maybe I should start looking to the day in front of me, and search for a way to live my life better that day. Maybe I should be looking for a way to glorify and honor God during my day. Not to say I don't do that already, but maybe to make it my passion instead of just a passing thought.

Here's another question. What do you do when people praise your talents? Say you are a phenomenal dancer, like you were born with extra talent most people don't have, and everything just seems to come easy to you. What do you do when people insist upon praising you for it, and making it known to their friends? Let me make something clear real quick, I am using a hypothetical example. I cannot dance, do not wish to dance, just...no. It's an example. But how do you respond? You can't just say, "no, you're wrong, I don't have any talent in that area," because that's obviously not true, but on the other hand, you don't want to respond with "yeah, no kidding, I'm the best one out there, did you see my moves?" Where's the balance? How do you acknowledge their praise without seeming hot-headed?

Did you know that Google gives you an insane amount of storage space? Yeah, 2888 MB! That's over 2 GB of storage space! You know how many KB that is? almost 3 MILLION. To explain how huge that is, a normal email is around 10-15 KB. Divided out, that would be about 200,000 emails. Where are you gonna need to store 200,000 emails? How are you even going to remember the first 3000 by the time you get to 10,000? How insanely huge is that? I hope I never have that many emails to go through. Can you imagine how long it would take to find one email? I shudder to think of it.

Well my little sister is finally heading off to college! She's 18, fresh out of highschool, and heading off to LeTourneau University in Longview, TX on Monday! I wanted to attend that school, but it didn't work out for me, so I'm totally floored that it worked out for her. She'll love it up there. They even get snow sometimes! That is a big thing, cuz it just doesn't do that here. We had a little party for her last night, that was fun. It's a good thing Melissa is pregnant, because my mother will need something to obsess over with Bethany gone. Yeah, she'll only be like 4 hours away, but that's a long time. Actually, I think it may be longer, but I haven't been there in 3 years, so how I am supposed to remember? Whatever, I think she'll have a great time. It's weird to have her going off to college, cuz it seems too early. It seems weird for her to be growing up, because it seems like so long ago that I was that age, and plus she's always been my little sister, so it doesn't seem like she's old enough. I remember when I was that age (duh, four years ago, I BETTER be able to remember that), and I was kinda freaked out about being out on my own in a strange place. Yeah, I was excited about getting out of my parents house and away from all the rules, but you know what happens when you get away from your parents' rules? You get to meet all the World's rules. FUN FUn Fun fun. yeah, NOT. Of course, it won't be quite so bad, because she won't be living on campus. That's good though, cuz you gotta watch out for all those computer nerds - never know what they'll do to you. :) just kidding, but seriously, watch out. Anyway, better get back to work. Later,

$

Thursday! Almost Friday...but not

2007-08-16T08:29:00.000-05:00

So what's up? How's life? That bad, huh? Oh really? That's terrific. Glad to hear it.

So anyway, the week is almost over and I am SO glad. Don't get me wrong, I love my life, and I'm not in any hurry to get old(er), but I am always glad to get through the work week.

Sheesh, what a busy day. I wrote that last sentence a half hour ago. Keep getting interrupted by people who think they're more important. That's the way of the world, right? Seems like it.

How do you deal with difficult people? If you're not doing anything wrong, and they're just being difficult, how do you deal with them? I gotta say, I've changed my approach. In general, I am terrified of confrontation - it's just my personality type. However, I have started standing up for myself - especially at work. There comes a point when you just don't want to deal with it anymore. At first it was scary, and I'd be breathing hard or shaking or something, and now I kind of enjoy it. It's like a challenge to see who will win. I mean why should people always be able to push you around? Stand up and defend yourself! To quote First Knight:

"Fight! Like you've never fought before! Fight! Never Surrender! Never Surrender!" Of course, then he gets shout five times and eventually dies, but at least he went down swinging. Literally - he was swinging his sword around when they shot him. If you haven't seen that movie, rent it now. The acting could be a little better, but it's a great movie. That and Pirates 1. I have them memorized. Great stuff.

So what about this weather? I quit watching the weather at night because I was tired of them being wrong - so now it's always an adventure. What will the weather be like tomorrow? Might be rain, might be sun, for sure it will be hot, but that's just because this is Houston, Texas, and it's ALWAYS hot.

I'm just curious, how many people actually read this post on a regular basis? If you're reading this right now, can you leave a comment with your first name or something just to let me know? I'd like to know. Don't worry, I'm not going to hunt you down, call you out, or email you weird stuff, just like to know if anyone other than james, lynne, and melissa (and Isaac, of course) are reading this stuff. Better get back to work. I've been trying to finish this post for over an hour. Later,

$

Tuesday

2007-08-14T08:14:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't posted since my birthday, but don't worry, not much has happened. Birthday was alright, I still have to return a couple presents, and I'm gonna end up buying a couple things I asked for, cuz nobody wanted to get them. I'm not saying any more about it, because you want me to stop just as bad as I'd like to continue.

Ever had one of those coughs / runny noses that just won't go away? I've had one for like two or three weeks, and I can't get it to go away. The fun part is that it's not getting any better or any worse.

Ok, saw an article today that really ticked me off. Title? 4 Ways to Make Your Man Jealous. Oh wait, I forgot a word: Harmless! 4 Harmless Ways. Yeah, cuz making your guy or girl jealous is a good thing now! Yeah right! Here's the best part. The article was written by a guy! Traitor. They talk about messing with your guy's head and making him think that maybe you're getting interested in other guys on the internet or at work, and that's supposed to get him more interested in you! Or it suggests maybe showing him up in a sport, because that's supposed to ignite your sex life! Yeah, nothing gets me more attracted to Melissa than when she beats me at a sport! That's a man's playground! You don't touch that! If the two of you discover that you are better at something, that's fine for the TWO of you to know, but you don't have to go flaunt that in public! Good grief, whatever happened to building each other up in love? For the record, it is NOT good to make your spouse (or significant other of the oposite sex) jealous! Jealousy is a bad bad bad thing and it leads to hate. Hate leads to the Dark Side. Yeah, that's right, Yoda was a philosopher. It's true though.

In side news today, I discovered that one half of Abe Lincoln's face was shorter than the other. So what? Who really cares about that. Here's another piece of worthless body trivia. My rib cage isn't symmetrical. The right side curves out at the bottom, and the left side curves in! Feel your ribs, you'll see how weird that is, and then you'll stop caring. I think they ran out of good stuff to talk about. Can you imagine having a job like that? Reporting pointless news? Imagine having to actually do research on which female celebrities have small dogs and what kind of dogs they are, and what their names are. There's an article on it on Yahoo. I pity the person who had to do that article.

So what's up? How was your weekend? How's your week going so far? I keep asking these questions, and nobody ever responds, but maybe someday someone will. Crazy thing is that I'm actually interested to hear from you.

Ever have one of those phone calls where you would swear you're talking to a woman, and it turns out to be a man, or vice versa? I hate it when that happens. Especially when you ask, "what's your name, Ma'am?" and they respond with "Miguel." ugh. embarrassing. You really hope they thought you said "man" instead of "ma'am."

As much as I would love to keep going, I should get to work. I know you're disappointed, please leave your comment, and I'll address it in another post later today or tomorrow.

$

Almost Friday...But Not

2007-08-09T07:43:00.000-05:00

So, I gotta talk about this, because it's ridiculous. Barry Bonds hit homerun number 756, which beat Hank Aaron's record of 755 I guess. Some dude from New York caught the ball, and now the IRS is saying it counts as income! The ball is worth 600,000 bucks, so that puts him in the highest tax bracket which, according to Yahoo, is 35%. He's gonna have to pay $210,000 even if he sells the stinkin ball! How can anyone in their right mind count that as income? That's ridiculous. If he kept that ball for three tax years, he'd end up paying more than it's worth in taxes! How stupid. Darn government. They're not that bad off.

So how's your day going? I know, it's still early. I'll bet at least a third of my readers are still asleep. But that's ok. Some of us have to get up early and go to work. I don't mind though. You know how boring it is not to have a plan for the day? The couple times I've been forced to stay home and not go anywhere, it's driven me crazy. Always gotta be doing something. That's why I got a rubik's cube. I can't solve it, but I can do designs and it's fun to fidget with. Something for my fingers to do. How do some people manage to sit still for extended periods of time? I don't get it.

This is a short post today, and I apologize to those of you that will be disappointed.

1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
3 For the Lord is the great God,
And the great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
7 For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.

Psalm 95:1-7

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Wednesday Woes

2007-08-08T10:56:00.000-05:00

Like the alliteration? I don't. It's cheesy. But whatever. Anywho...

How's the week going? We had our first pregnancy visit with the doctor yesterday. They confirmed that Melissa is indeed pregnant (whew) and told us to come back in a month. We were pleasantly surprised to discover they encourage natural childbirth, cuz we are gonna do this thing drug-free. Ok, Melissa is gonna do it drug free. I'm gonna be in there making sure they don't try to use some anyway. You gotta watch doctors - they'll do all sorta things you said not to, but they won't tell you before they do it.

So how'd you sleep last night? I was awake (or at least it felt like I was awake) for most of the night. I kept hearing things and having weird dreams, and then at 5:30 I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. Strange things. My wife laughed when I told her that, because she's having weird dreams, too, but she's pregnant. Man, I sure hope I don't get a whole lot of sympathy symptoms. I've heard of guys developing breasts, lactating, craving strange food, and all sorts of stuff. That's scary.

I figured something out this morning on my drive to work. I know what embarasses me. Blowing my nose in public. I'd rather sniff all day long and sound gross than have to blow my nose in front of people. My eyes tear up, and my face gets twisted in a weird way, and I look pitiful. I don't usually care what people think about me, but that is one thing that gets to me. What about you? What embarasses you? Am I spelling that word wrong? It's a tough one for me, and I don't know why. That and mispell. I never know if it's right or not - heck, I don't even know if that one is right. Please help.

So what's going on in the world today? Here's a weird (that's my word today) one for you. A guy smuggled a MONKEY into the country by hiding it under his hat. Dude, get a life. What kind of person does that? Why? Did he get a rush by doing something illegal? Doesn't sound that exciting to me. What was he thinking? Oh yeah, I really want a monkey for a pet, but I don't want a regular American monkey, so I'll just break the law and bring one back from my business trip?! I mean, come on dude, get a life. I already said that. And what does that say about international security? If you can get a monkey through customs, couldn't you get a plastique explosive or something? Can you imagine the panic that could have followed if that thing had run loose in the plane? It was a tiny monkey, just a little bigger than a squirrel, so a lot of people could have mistaken it for something else, and been jumping all over the place. Seems like a stupid idea.

Something happens tomorrow. I mentioned it like a week ago, so I'm not gonna say what it is, but if you know, then I suggest you do something about it.

So what's happening the rest of the week? Bourne Ultimatum just came out - it's topping the box offices. Alread made like 80 million the first weekend. Melissa and I are gonna go see that and Rush Hour 3 this weekend. I think they're both gonna be good. I would write more, but lunch is calling my name, and I must answer. Later!

$

Cool Map Quiz Thing

2007-08-07T14:16:00.000-05:00

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

For Lynne

2007-08-03T13:43:00.000-05:00

This post is for Lynne, because she was very disappointed with my last post, and the last thing anyone wants to do is disappoint a woman. Especially one who knows where you live and has a key to your home.

Ever feel like you can't get a single thing done? That's today. Every stinking person in this office building wants something from me!! I CAN"T HELP ALL OF YOU AT ONCE!!!! It's kind of like that shirt, "I can only help one person at a time, and today's not your day. Tomorrow's not looking to good, either." That's my new slogan. That's why I can never run for president. I'd never get elected with that kind of work ethic. It's true for a lot of people, but not many people are honest enough to admit it. Maybe I should be less truthful.

Ever use loopholes? I happen to be the king of loopholes, so if you ever need to get out of something, let me know and i'll think up a good excuse for you. My mother would fuss at me for throwing something (like a ball) in the house, and I'd respond, "I didn't throw it though, I tossed it, and you didn't say I couldn't toss stuff." That's not the best logic in the world, but it's true. If you give me an example, I can give you a loophole. Is that necessarily something to be proud of? Probably not, but I am (just a little bit). Everybody's good at something. I'm good at telling people what they need to hear in time of trial, and what they want to hear when I can't really help them.

Have you ever figured out what your love language is? Funny side note: just cuz it's called a love language doesn't mean you only use it with your spouse/significant other. It just means how you convey your emotions towards people; it's how you best communicate. My wife is quality time. If she's upset with you, she doesn't want to be anywhere around you. If she's really happy with me, or needing some extra loving, she'll want to sit next to me - not even to talk sometimes, just to be with me. I totally don't get that, but I'm words. I like to talk. WHAT?!?!?! You? Talk? Never! Yes, it's true, I use words. That's why I enjoy doing this whole blog thing and I don't really care if no one responds, just cause I'm getting my thoughts out and I like to pretend that someone is reading them and maybe enjoying them. I do enjoy the occasional response, and when I get negative ones (like today), I like to respond and hopefully fix the problem. Understanding your love language (LL) is really important when it comes to making/keeping friends, because you can look for people that will be able to communicate on your level. I love talking with other words people, because we can bond or whatever. It also really helps with your spouse, because if you can communicate it to them, they'll know how to show you love. It's even more important the other way around. If you can figure out what your spouse's LL is, it will revolutionize your marriage. You can do the smallest gestures, and they will love it. Melissa can walk in the house, say "I love you baby," and not even stay in the same room with me, but I immediately feel loved for the rest of the evening. If, on the other hand, she comes in and sits next to me while I'm on the computer and she reads a book, I feel completely ignored. See what I mean? Now, that's just an example, because we do know each other's LL's, so we've gotten really great at communicating. You should look into it if you get a chance.

Have you ever been to one of those websites that shows how many sodas it takes to kill you? it's kind of morbid, but I think it's funny. Take this for example: I could drink 266.34 cans of Dr. Pepper before croaking. Here's the link for it: http://www.energyfiend.com/death-by-caffeine/ . It also does like certain kinds of candy, too. Just something good to do if you're bored or something.

Read today that the most births in one family was 69 children to one woman. OOOOOOOWWWW!!!!!!!!! That's ridiculous. Check this out: The world record for having the most number of children officially recorded is 69 by the first of two wives of Feodor Vassilyev (1707-1782), a peasant from Shuya, 150 miles east of Moscow. In 27 confinements, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets. The children were born between 1725-1765.

Later,

$

Friday!

2007-08-03T08:01:00.000-05:00

How's everyone doing today? It's friday, tomorrow's saturday, glory be! How's your week been? Long, right? Yeah, me too.

So any, melissa's morning sickness started. So far it's just in the morning, and once she eats lunch, she's ok, but that's still not encouraging. What is encouraging is that two of her friends got morning sickness all day every day for most of their pregnancy. Stinks for them, but it means she could be a lot worse off. We're looking forward to this coming Tuesday. It's our fisst doctor's visit for da baby. I don't remember all the stuff we get to find out, but it's exciting. Melissa's got this one website that tells her how big the baby is, and right now it's like the sixe of a lima bean I think. The heart already started pumping, too. Not much to say today. Sorry to disappoint you. Later,

$

Happy August!

2007-08-01T07:50:00.000-05:00

This is the first and last time the date will ever be August 1, 2007. DUH. Anyway, lots of birthdays this month. My friends Alison and Seth, my coworker Linda, my late Great-Grandmother, myself, and I think a couple other people I know as well, but those are just off the top of my head. Someone's having a baby today, so congratulations to you. The year is moving way too quickly. The days move slowly, but the months fly by. School starts this month. Yuck. For those of you out there who actually enjoy school, you're weird. Sorry, but it's true.

So, Wednesday, the mid-week, Hump Day (still not sure why people call it that) is finally here. Seemed like there was a lot more traffic today than usual. Whatever.

Saw a couple interesting things in the news today. Seems they think they've found a cure for blindness! Yeah, this fish supposedly has the ability to restore damaged retinas. Sounds great, just put a couple of these in your bathwater at night, stick your head underwater for a few minutes, and you'll come out with 20/20 vision after three weeks! Yeah, that's not really how they put it, but my version is better. Also saw that Nicole Richie has decided to have a baby with her boyfriend. Oh that's just great. "Yeah, we're gonna have a baby, but we don't feel the need to get married. That way, after a couple years when my boyfriend finds someone cuter than me he can just leave me with the kid." What's really sad about that is "she's decided to have a baby." Ya know what? You don't have a choice. You get pregnant, you have the baby. If you're such a horrible person that you don't wanna deal with a baby, you give it up for adoption. Under NO circumstances do you Not have the baby. Children are a gift from God. And you know what? If you're not married, and you get pregnant, that means you were sleeping around and you shouldn't have been doing that in the first place! So it serves you right that you get pregnant. "But, oh, it's going to ruin my social life!" Umm, ya think?! You know what the best way to avoid getting pregnant is? DON"T HAVE SEX BEFORE YOU GET MARRIED. It's that simple. It is literally impossible to get pregnant if you don't have sex. And another thing, I get so sick of people treating kids like a hassle. "Oh, children are such a burden, you should really wait till you've lived your life before you have kids, cuz you won't be able to do anything fun after kids." AAAAAGH!!! You're stupid if you think having kids isn't fun. Kids are awesome. Except teenagers, they're kinda weird. Ugh, how can you think of another human being as a burden? It's disgusting.

Moving on...soapbox time finished. Actually, this post is finished, I've run out of stuff to talk about for now. Later,

$

Monday Passed, Tuesday Arrived, Big Deal

2007-07-31T08:01:00.000-05:00

So it's Tuesday the 31st of July, 2007. What's happening today, right now? Various people are sleeping, various people are awake, various people are dying, various people are being born. Life goes on like normal, but STOP! Something's different. What is it? Ah yes, you have stopped everything to read this post. You have hit pause on the giant Tivo of life. In all sincerity, I thank you. Thank you for taking a moment to read my thoughts. That's what this blog is - I just write whatever I'm thinking at the moment. If you see a day where I don't post a blog, now you know why: I just wasn't thinking.

So what will you do today? Go anywhere? Do anything? I'm going home afterwork and relaxing with my wife. Maybe we'll go walking or something. It never hurts to get a little exercise, 'specially since she's growing a kid.

So did you hear that Marvin Zindler died? Liver cancer or something. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but he always freaked me out with the white hair, blue sunglasses and LOUD voice. I never watched any of his news reports (because he freaked me out).

So the movie 300 came out today on DVD. Did you ever see it? I saw it twice. Yes, it has two scenes where I had to avert my eyes, but the rest of the movie was soooooo good. It's got some of the coolest fight sequences I've ever seen. I think they used some new camera techniques or something. And yeah, they all die in the end, but everyone knew that to begin with. It's still a great movie.

Oy, just 8 hours left to work today - I might post something else later, or I might not. Either way, thanks for stoppin' by! Later,

$

Monday is Here Again!

2007-07-30T08:06:00.000-05:00

It happened. I knew it would. You knew it too, you just didn't want to talk about it. The weekend ended, and Monday showed up again. I guess we should be thankful for Mondays, though, because it means we got a weekend. Imagine if the week went straight from Friday to Monday - no weekend! Ugh. Anybody have a good weekend? I hope so.

I started serving on Tech Team with my church this weekend. It was really cool. I started on camera, and I gotta say, it's a lot harder than it looks, but it's really fun. I got to church at 6:45 am, and left at 1pm.

Aren't you so glad you're not a celebrity? I am. Sure, it would be nice having that much money, but they have no privacy! Everybody has to know every little thing about them! I enjoy my privacy too much for that life. Ever see the movie Papparazzi? I don't know if I spelled that correctly, but it really focused on how harrassed celebrities are. On the other hand, if are trying to get into that lifestyle, you have to know what you're getting into. There's no way anyone could want to get into Hollywood and not believe they're going to lose their privacy. It's like being forced into a life-long documentary about you, and you can't get out. Every second of their life is on film - either movie or camera. I shudder to think how miserable some of them must be. (shudder)

If you haven't noticed, I have a new poll. You can vote on it, or don't, whatever. Later,

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Saturday

2007-07-28T20:25:00.000-05:00

Well another weekend has shown up. Crazy thing, I'm not writing this from home. Am I at work you ask? No I'm not. A parent's house perhaps? Again, no. I am at James and Lynne's. Bestest friends in the whole wide world.

Got to go to the shooting range today! I was soooo happy. I shot 200 rounds through my Glock 23, and I've attached a picture of my very last target. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's my very last bullet, too.

Anybody else having a good weekend? That's good. I get to do camera for the Met tomorrow morning! That's gonna be really fun, and I'm really excited, but on the other hand, I've only had one chance to practice. I don't know exactly how good I am at it. I think I did alright, but I'm kinda nervous about it. It's one thing if no one can see what you're doing, but it's going to be up on a big screen in front of 1500 people, so a mistake would be very noticeable. This is a short post, I know, but I didn't have much time, and I felt like doing something.

$

Can I Get an Amen?

2007-07-27T08:14:00.000-05:00

Good Morning Boys and Girls! It is finally Friday. Can you believe it? I think you can! It's about time it got here, too.

So the wife and I went to see the new Harry Potter last night - The Order of the Phoenix, and I must say, I have no idea why they called it that. They only mention the Order like 4 times in the whole movie. My wife would say "read the book," but I just don't want to now that I've seen the movie. What about you? Can you read a book after you see the movie or does it have to be the other way around? If I'm going to do both, I have to read the book first. Except then the movie's not quite as fun, because you already know what's coming.

I'm going to tell you something important now, but you must understand why I am telling you. I am not telling you so you will be inspired to run out and spend money, call me, or mail me a card, I'm simply telling you because, well, it's happening. My birthday is now less that two weeks away. Am I looking forward to it? No, not really. After 21, every birthday is just another year older. I'm not worried about actually being old yet, but I'm certainly not getting any younger. "But it's still your birthday, aren't you a little bit excited?" Well, I'm excited about what I might get... Isn't that what birthdays have become? Who can get you the coolest, most expensive gift? Yeah, I'm a little excited to see if anyone gets me something I want, but if they don't, I understand, cuz I have a fairly expensive list. I don't I listed anything under 25 bucks except one CD. It's sad, I know. Plus, like I said before, I'm just turning another year older, and how exciting can that really be? Christmas is a different story, just in case you're getting worried about my view of other holidays. Yeah, I start looking forward to Christmas on December 26th. I watch each month go by, and I count down to when the next Christmas will get here. Of course, if you remember how many days there are in a year, it's pretty easy to tell when it will get here...

So you know, I've been looking forward to going to the shooting range all week, but it finally hit me today, the shooting range is probably underwater. With all the rain this week, and how low down it is, I'm sure it's flooded. If I have to, I'll go to Top Gun (Indoor range), but I doubt anyone else will be able to come with me, cuz it's out of the way, and how many people are really gonna want to do that? Oh well.

Usually all the rain and gloomy weather would come across as depressing, but with today being Friday, it's not so bad. I can rejoice in the fact that when 5:20 gets here, I can be out the door, and I won't have to walk through that door again till Monday morning. I think this weekend will be a good one.

For those of you wondering, the first doctor's office visit concerning Small Change #1 (da baby) is the 7th, so please don't ask how it went yet. Once the 7th has come and gone, feel free to ask questions. In the mean time, mommy is doing good, experiencing increased hunger and fatigue already, but doing good otherwise. Later!

$

Just another Thursday in this CrAzY world...

2007-07-26T13:38:00.000-05:00

Check out this news story forwarded to me by my wonderful wife:

Town Considers Ban on Teens at Mall
AP
Posted: 2007-07-26 12:39:22
Filed Under: Law, Nation

FRESNO, Calif. (July 26) - A shopping mall's plan to ban teenagers from entering shops and restaurants unless accompanied by an adult has been put on hold after the city attorney questioned its constitutionality. The Shops at River Park had planned to limit evening access for minors on weekends beginning Aug. 3 in an attempt to rid the center of its reputation as a teen hangout. The rule required that anyone under the age of 18 be accompanied by someone over the age of 21 after 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.But the new policy concerned City Attorney James Sanchez, who warned police not to enforce the ban, saying it could violate state or federal civil rights laws regarding free speech and the right to assemble. On Wednesday, the mall's developer announced the ban would be delayed at least a month to allow for public input at community meetings."What we're trying to accomplish is to protect everyone's rights - the young people and the old people," said developer Ed Kashian.

A concerned parent later commented on the story, and for your sake I won't include the entire quote, but check out what this guy did!

As it is now, we have stopped trying to go to a local mall on Fri or Sat because of the number of do nothing kids. Several have tried to grab my wife's purse, and yet others have plowed into my daughter's stroller with complete disregard to anything remotely close to consideration. The one's with the purse, I grabbed two and knocked them both into a support column. And one who literally knocked my two year old daughter over in her stroller, cussed her outand tried to take a swipe at the stroller like it was our fault. He was picked up and promptly thrown into the fountain and knocked back in every time he tried to get out.

Bravo, Dude! That's hilarious. Man, I tell you what, people better be thinkin' twice before they try to mess with my wife or child(who, yes, is still on the way)! Those of you who know me well understand what I'm talking about. I mean, come on, messing with a man's family, that's just something you don't do if you care for your own safety. Gotta be a moron or something to do that. And you know what, if I was that idiot in the fountain, I'd stay there until the PO'd father walked off.

Now to address the news story. I agree and I disagree. Why, you ask? Well, don't worry, I'll tell you. I think that any city is wrong to censor admittance into a public place based on age, race, sex, hair color, shoe size, or anything. Anybody that we struggle to keep out will just find another place to hang out, and I'd rather see teenagers hanging out at the mall rather than the back alleys behind the mall or around bars. There's another solution to fixing that problem - parents need to do their job as parents and actually give a crap about their kids. If I'm offending you, get over it. If your child is under 18, you should know where they are and what they're doing, and if you don't trust their life to the friends they're hanging out with, you should be with them. If your children are still living at home, YOU are responsible for their safety. How many 12 or 13 year-olds do we hear of that are being abducted from parking lots or movie theatres because they weren't with someone who could protect them? It happens all the time. My children will be safe because my wife and I will be with them, and we will die before anything happens to them. Even better, any ill-minded attacker will die before my children come to harm.

I think if parents do their job, their children will not be hanging out at the mall or movie theater with nothing to do but swap spit and get high. Moving on...

I DO agree with the idea of stopping underaged kids from hanging out in large groups in public places. I hate going to the movies on friday nights at WillowBrook AMC because it's gang night! Saturday night isn't a whole lot better. Yes, I am always armed around there, but I don't want to use it! I'd like to be able to see a movie without wondering if someone's going to steal my car while I'm inside, or if someone's gonna try to jack my wife's purse as we leave. Granted, there are people over the age of 18 who are just as likely to try something, but come on, why do all those kids need to be hanging around outside all night? I remember being 16 (mostly cuz it was only 6 years ago), and we didn't do that. We picked a friend's house to hang out at, and stayed there till midnight or later. Yes we were out late, but at least our parents knew where we were, we were within 30 feet of an adult, and we were in a safe environment. Now that we're older we pick a pool hall or something, but we're older, can take of ourselves, and we're not just hanging around staring at people. Oh well, you're tired of listening to this now, aren't you?

I've got a great quote for you: I'm a nobody, nobody is perfect, therefore, I am perfect!

Ha ha ha... yeah, OK. So anyway, just one work day left this week, and then freedom for two days! Going shooting this weekend (finally!). I'll get to test out my new gun and make sure it works. yeah, you think i'm kidding. (Phew) gotta try to go to bed earlier. I'm tired all the time, and that's just not fun. Only got three and a half hours left today. Later!

"Okay, pull the pin and count to what???"

$

Moving Too Fast

2007-07-24T10:14:00.000-05:00

Ever have one of those days when the whole world needs to just STOP? That's today. I'm wishing I had a remote control with a giant PAUSE button. I would be mashing down on that sucker so hard it wouldn't know which way to go. I mean, if the phone's not ringing, then someone's got something for me to do, and if not that, then I've got tons of paperwork on my desk that's overdue, and everythingneedstobedonerightnow! Can't do it! It's only 10:30 in the morning, and I'm exhausted! My wife is exhausted too, but she's pregnant, so that's ok. Love ya honey!

Y'know, just between you and me, I'm thinking I should go to an allergist. I can't barely breath out of my nose! I can look up my nose in a mirror, and I can see that it is really inflamed on both sides. I'm almost used to it; I mean, you grow up in Texas, chances are you're allergic to something. I am allergic to the city of Houston. No joke! We leave town, I can breathe.

I love cake. If the inventor of cake were still alive, he or she would always be welcome in my house. I made a cake two days ago (Well, Betty Crocker made the mix, and I added ingredients), and I'm fixing to eat what's left of it. It's soo good. ok, well, maybe it tastes a little better because I'm hungry.

Saw on the news today that some guy was given the first bionic hand with moveable fingers. That's pretty cool. It'd be pretty cool too if you could take over the hand by Wi-Fi like the iPhone. Guy's just walking along and all the sudden he starts slapping himself and passersby. He wouldn't know what to do with himself!

...Soooo........

Yeah, I don't have much to say today. Not much has happened. Oh well, I can go to lunch in 15 minutes, maybe something good will happen then. Later.

$

Every day is a Monday

2007-07-23T13:16:00.000-05:00

Ever have one of those days where everything is ticking you off?

That's today.

I have no idea why, and the fact that I'm upset for no reason is ticking me off even more!!!!! It's a vicious circle. Maybe if I was a woman this would be easier. I could blame it on PMS or something. My day started out hunky dory (I've never figured out how exactly that's spelled), and the next thing I know, I'm mad...at what? I have no idea.

such a nice day outside, blue skies, few clouds, maybe there's a bird chirping merrily somewhere...

wouldn't know though, cuz i'm stuck inside

i'm just full of cynicism today. Oh well, that's why you read my posts, right? Oh yeah, some of you are looking to see how Melissa's coming along with the pregnancy thing. Well, for all you curious people out there, only one thing has changed since yesterday: today, she is one day further along! Ha ha, so funny.

NO.

Anywho, how was your weekend? I mean, really, how was it? No one ever answers my questions on this thing, so I'm not sure why I assume you will, but I have a feeling about you. You're different - I can tell. You're not like those other blog readers who just read and move on to another website. You actually care about what's going on with me, and you can't wait till you get to the end of this post so you can tell me your thoughts. In fact you're considering jumping to the end, leaving a comment, and then coming back to finish of the post, but DON'T! Wait till the end.

My weekend was so long, I thought that Saturday night was Sunday night. I was starting to complain that I had to go to work in the morning, and my wife pointed out that we still had another day to go. I spent a long time up that our church on Friday night and Saturday morning/afternoon for a Men's Conference. It was really good. The worship was especially great. Saturday night, we all went to Hido (it's a Japanese place). It's like Benihana's, but it's actually worth the money. Very nice place. Yesterday was really nice too, because after church, we took a nap, and then just lounged around the apartment reading and watching tv. I even made a cake! Please don't be too impressed though, cuz I used the Betty Crocker stuff. I can't even make mud out of scratch. Oh well. At least I made it. Melissa made a loaf of bread with her bread maker (wedding gift). It makes really good bread, but they'll never win first prize in the most beautiful loaf of bread contest, that's for sure.

Anybody watch the news this weekend? I didn't. Anything good happen? Really? Well then maybe you can leave a comment and tell me about it! Thank you so much, you're too kind.

Found out something interesting about Larry the Cable Guy. His real name is Dan Whitney, and if you look for him on You Tube, you can find a couple videos from a loooooooong time ago. He's actually skinny, with a mullet, and accent-free! It's not nearly as funny as his recent stuff. We did catch a joke that he re-used, though. He met this girl with a beauty mark on her cheek, and then later as they were makin' out, it started moving. Turned out it was a tick! Ba dum, Chssssssch. (How do you type out that sound?)

Caught a tree frog in the office today. He was stickin' to the man. Get it? Instead of stickin' it to the man? Tree frogs, and they're sticky...with the tree..... Gee, tough crowd. He was very sticky.

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Saturday - still pregnant!

2007-07-21T18:14:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't heard, my wife is pregnant! Yeah, very exciting! We've only known since wednesday, so don't ask me if it's a boy or girl, please. My sister asked me and I said we were gonna wait 'till Christmas to find out. So let that be a warning to you. We will find out when we find out, and if you ask me, i'll push the asking date back even further. So there. No, i really won't, but please don't ask me. I promise the day I find out, I will post it. If you're a family member, don't worry, I'll call you. Our first doctor's visit is two tuesdays from now, I have no idea what they're gonna say other than, "well, you're pregnant for sure!" "Gee thanks Doc." Whatever.

For those of you that are interested in me, I still have not been able to go the range with my new gun, but i'm accepting it...for now. The time will come soon enough. I'm hoping the time will come next saturday, but i'm trying not to get my hopes up.

Anybody want to give me an idea of how soon a woman can start acting pregnant? My wife is like five weeks along, and she's already asking me to get stuff for her. Not freakishly weird stuff like anchovie-flavored mac and cheese, but "Baby I can't get up and get a glass of water, can you get it for me?" LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR: I would still get her the glass of water even if she wasn't pregnant, but is she really far enough along to act semi-helpless. Baby, just so you know, I love you dearly and will do anything for you.

Man, only gotta wait till March. Maybe April, but it would have to be like the first couple days of April. Ha, that would be absolutely hilarious if we had a baby on April Fool's Day. It would be funny for like 5 minutes. Well, ok, maybe we could have a little fun with it. "Hey Bob, I had a kid today!" "Oh, really?? "Nah, April Fools!" "Ha ha!" "No, April Fools again! We did have a kid today!"

Yeah, so that stopped being funny before I finished typng it, but I figured I'd finish it anyway for the sake of the one person on the face of the earth who might think it funny. Better get going (dinner date). Later.

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Guess What...

2007-07-20T13:11:00.000-05:00

We're pregnant! That's right, sometime in March next year, we will have a little money! Yay! We found out last night and I now have a countdown timer running for you to watch. I will also keep you updated with all the doctor's visits and everything, and when we find out the actual due date i will be sure to update the countdown timer. Don't have much more to say about it now, but i will of course keep you, my fan base, updated.

YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAWWWW!!!!!!!!

$

Stupid News

2007-07-19T08:37:00.001-05:00

Can't believe this - well, nevermind, I can believe this, it's just really really sad.

Malaysian police were left red-faced after a man who abandoned the theft of a $280,000 Porsche for lack of fuel attempted the crime a second time and drove the sportscar out of a police station, local media said.
The suspect had first attempted the theft on Monday at a luxury car showroom in northern Penang state, local papers said. Dressed smartly in a suit and tie, he asked for the car keys and promptly sped off, smashing through the glass windows.
The car was later found abandoned a short distance away, its fuel tank empty.
The New Straits Times said the man kept the keys and returned with a canister of petrol to a local police station where the car had been towed. He drove off with the Porsche, ditching it later after he discovered roadblocks had been set up to stop him.

That's crazy - it's one thing to steal it in the first place, but then to do it again to the same car and out of a Police impound lot? Sheesh. If he wants a Porsche that bad, he should just buy one.

Anyone ready for Friday yet? I know I am. Problem is, it's only Thursday. All that wishing you just did for Friday to be here? Totally wasted. It's still Thursday. It's been another long week, just like all the other weeks before. Here's an encouraging thought (at least to me): remember that movie that came out about the anti-christ child on 06-06-06? Well, that was over a YEAR ago. It doesn't seem like that long ago to me. It's very encouraging, because that means the rest of this year is just going to fly by before we know it. Hmm, kind of scary though. Better get busy accomplishing stuff. But what to do? .......

I tell you what I'd like to do - go to the shooting range. I bought that Glock 23 I've been rambling on and on about forever. Still haven't been able to try it out yet. I think it's the longest I've ever taken to try out a new purchase. Technically, I have used a Glock 23 before, but it wasn't mine. It's different. Ladies, you can associate here, too. Is it the same trying on the sample shoes in the store as it is to try on the shoes that you bought? Of course not. Same thing here - I just want to try it out - make sure it works and everything, plus it's really fun. Enough gun talk for now (if Melissa or Lynne are reading this, they thought this entire paragraph was unneccessary. I know I probably spelled that last word wrong, but I can never remember what letter doesn't get doubled there. Oh well.

What's everyone doing for the weekend? I'm taking my wife shopping as sort of a belated birthday present. She loves getting new clothes (what woman doesn't?). Seriously, are there any women out there who don't enjoy new clothes? That's a scary thought - what are you supposed to let them buy if they're upset? I shudder to think it could be true. Moving on, we are also going out with the family to Hido's for dinner. If you haven't ever been to Hido's, you should go. In the words of my wife, "It's like Benihana's, but actually good food."

It's funny, when I say the family, I actually mean my family, her family and our best friends James and Lynne and their new son, Isaac. Yet I can still refer to the group as "the family." It sounds so Godfather. "I'm callin' the whole family in for this one."

I better get back to work. Later!

$

It's Been A While

2007-07-17T16:24:00.000-05:00

So yeah, it has been a while since the last post. I think I lost half my normal fan base on Wednesday, though. Lynne has to watch her baby now, so I don't think she's going to have as much time on her hands anymore. Not that watching her baby is a bad thing, in fact I think it's a terrific thing, but it is probably going to keep her away from here for a little while.

So, I read the news today, and sadly I couln't find a whole lot to rag on. That's ok though, it's not like I really have all that much time to be talking about anything other than work. Today was so super busy, the only thing I want to do is go home. And do I get to do that? Well, yeah for about 20 minutes, then it's off to a job interview (hopefully). I'm not gonna tell you where, cuz if you don't already know, then I don't want you to find out. Well my wife finally turned TWENTY-ONE on Sunday. Yay, she can go get herself drunk now. I'M JUST KIDDING. She doesn't get drunk, and even if she decided to pick up the habit, there's no way I'd let her do it alone. We didn't do much, but I think I'm taking her shopping this weekend, cuz she loves to do that. I'm going to a Men's Conference that's supposed to be really good. Oh well, time to go home. Later!

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Thursday has arrived, and so has Isaac!

2007-07-12T07:53:00.000-05:00

It's finally happened! Isaac Singleton has been born! 3:45 pm, 8 pounds 2 ounces, and 20 inches long! Big ol' baby! My wife and I got there about 2 hours after he was born and I gotta say, he's a good lookin baby! His momma and daddy are so proud. LOTS of family visited yesterday, and I bet a lot more are gonna be visiting today.

Well, tomorrow's friday, and I'm soo glad. This week has been really long it feels like. I keep waking up and thinking, "gosh, it's only _____!" I mean, the days themselves have been going pretty fast, even though we've been working an extra hour each day, it just seems like the week itself is taking forever to close.

Saw a pretty crazy accident last night. A little car rear-ended an SUV, and the SUV flipped. But that wasn't the crazy part. It was still facing the right way on the road! I don't get how that works. It was facing the same direction I was, but it was completely upside down. Must have spun a little bit, too. Like I said, crazy.

Read about something very interesting on Yahoo! news today. There's this condition called Face Blindness. The technical term is Prosopagnosia. This one lady was talking about how it affects her, and she said it took her four years to memorize the faces of her kids. That's crazy/scary. Their son has the same problem and they had to call the cops one time to help them find him, cuz he couldn't remember what his parents looked like. I'm sure we can all agree that there are a few people out there we wouldn't mind forgetting, but I can't imagine not being able to remember anybody. I mean, faces are usually the only thing I remember about people. How insane. The video I watched said that all you need is just a reminder who the person is and then you're fine until you meet them next time, but what if you don't have anyone with you to help you remember? There's apparently a spot in the brain that serves as recognition software, and it's totally separate from actually remembering the person. You remember that they are real, and you know everything about them, you just don't remember what they look like, so you could meet someone, and then run into them 5 minutes later and not remember ever seeing them before. That's gotta be strange. If you click on "Face Blindness" up there, it will take you to the video, and the yellow word will take you to the main website analyzing the problem. Some pretty interesting stuff.

Well, have a wonderful Thursday, I'll post more tomorrow, and maybe I'll have some better pics of Isaac. Later!

It's only Tuesday??

2007-07-10T07:52:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess yesterday was so long, I thought it was two days worth. Can't believe it's only tuesday. Did you see that Vince Vaughn is gonna be in a Santa Claus-type movie? The amazing thing is that even with all that weight he's put on, he's not even gonna be Santa! Ha ha ha... moving on. Umm, oh! Read on the news this morning that it has recently come out that cats do not always land on their feet! That's just terrible. I'd hate to be the cats in that experiment. "OK we got the 35 foot drop coming up!" "MEEEOOOOOUUUCCCCHHHH!!!!" ......Oh come on, you could at least give me a smile at that one! Tough crowd today!

So what's up today? I'm working, and then going to a job interview probably. Trying to bring in some more dough! Yeah we'll see how that goes.

This song is one of the first ones that playe don my computer this morning, and I thought I'd share it with you. I've never heard the entire thing, but I included every verse just cuz. Enjoy!

COME THOU FOUNT

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;

How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;

Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry

Me to realms of endless day.

It's a really beautiful song with a very true message. Have a great day!

$

2007-07-09T08:39:00.000-05:00

The Reaper And The Flowers

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" Saith he;
"Having naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again,"

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eye,
He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
He bound them in his sheaves.

"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper said, and smiled:
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where he was once a child."

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love:
She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
'Twas an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.

I've loved this poem since I first read it about six months ago. It seems so peaceful even with such a sad sound. I think maybe because it illustrates well just how marvelous God is. We may see tradgedy in a situation, when in reality, God is bringing glory to himself. We may never understand why he removes something from our lives, but He always knows why because He is God, and His ways are far above our own.

I read something interesting today in my devotional. First, check out these verses from Psalms:

91:7 "A thousand my fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you."

91:10-12 "No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone."

91:15-16 "He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long live I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation."

Sounds pretty encouraging right? Yeah, but in my devotional, John Piper points out that just because we put our faith in God does not mean we are safe from all harm. Don't get me (or him) wrong, I'm not saying we have no protection at all, but some people take these verses to mean we will be forever protected from all harm because "If God is for us, who can be against us?" If we look around, we can see bad things happening to strong Christians all over the world. Has God forgotten them? Did they do something to tick Him off, and therefore He no longer feels obliged to protect them? Of course not! God has pledged to be our Protector forever, but sometimes He does allow trial to come our way! If nothing bad ever happened, think how weak we would be. We would be totally helpless and would feel like we could do without God. Through trials, we truly learn how to rely on God for strength. Consider this, if you go a month with nothing bad happening to you, you start to think "Hey, I'm doing fine on my own - I don't really need God's protection." How do you think you've been doing so well? God has been watching over you. So I think that sometimes when we get a little headstrong, He lets something come along that puts us back in perspective.

I think that we are strengthened by trials. "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." You've heard that saying, right? Of course you have. It's not in the Bible, but it's true. The only real way to make it through trials is to lean on God. He will be faithful to bring you through. So that can translated to say that the more trials you make it through, the stronger your relationship with God will be. That's encouraging, isn't it? I think it is.

Don't be discouraged when you go through a hard time. Don't think that God is punishing you just because things aren't going well. In church yesterday, the pastor said this:

"You are either A) coming out of a storm, B) in the middle of a storm, or C) going into a storm."

Bad things happen to good people - but that doesn't mean God isn't in control or that he doesn't love you. If you are going through a tough spot, ask God what He wants you to learn through it. And be encouraged, it won't last forever. "God makes ALL things work together for good; to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)

God Loves You!

2007-07-09T07:50:00.000-05:00

Good morning people! I was gonna give this post a title, but the computer's not cooperating. How was your weekend? Mine was pretty good. Went to the gun show - that was pretty cool. Saw a few movies (at home), and saw Ratatouille in theatres. It was a very cute and funny movie right up till the end. The could have cut the last 20 minutes off the movie and not lost a thing. Anyone ever seen Rain Man? Good movie, but I don't think I'm ever gonna see it again.

Read on Yahoo today that you can "handle anger" by feeling without reacting. That's great. Someone spills a whole cup of coffee on you, and you simply look at them and say "I am so filled with rage toward you right now, but I'm not gonna do anything about it!" Now if that don't make you feel better, I don't know what will. Another suggestion was to "look within." OK, hmmmmmmmmmm... I'm looking within, and you know what I see? ANGER. Yes, this is working wonderfully. The very first point was my favorite. "Love and Anger are two sides of the same coin." Oh how cheesy!! They say that anger and intense emotion just show that you truly love someone. AAGH! Yeah, that makes everyone feel better!

Enough of that for now; I'm only 21 and I'm already showing the signs of being a bitter old man! This is terrific. I'm just gonna have to be more positive.

I LOVE EVERYBODY

...Yeah not helping. Still feeling cynical. Oh well, the phone's ringing. I'll have to post more later. Maybe I can be a little more positive.

...Yeah right.

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Friday!!!

2007-07-06T07:51:00.000-05:00

I had a post planned for today, and then I couldn't get the pictures to work, and then I got the feeling that no one wanted to read it anyway. End result? You get this as a post. Enjoy.

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The Morning After

2007-07-05T10:01:00.000-05:00

Anyone do fireworks last night? Were they just so amazing? Yeah ok whatever. We did some. Coulda done more, but just didn't feel like spending the money. Food was good though - went over to the in-laws. Always good food (partly cuz it's free). My wife and I spent literally half our day yesterday in bed. We didn't get out of bed 'till noon, and even then, we only got up long enough to cook breakfast, and then we went back to bed for another three hours. It was pretty nice. I'm thinking I probably could have gotten up and done stuff, but it wouldn't have been very fun alone, so I didn't. .......anyway........

So, anybody read the news this morning? Check this thing out - Zebrula. Half zebra, half horse. Supposedly, these things have been around since the 1800's but this one is special because it's coat is disctinctly split between zebra and horse hair. I think it looks weird. Just plain weird. Not cute, not necessarily ugly, but very weird. I think scientists should stop messing around with creatures and stop trying to play God. Humans weren't meant to be creators like that. Our stuff comes out weird and messed up - like this poor thing. Now, if someone wanted to mix a Great Dane with a Chihuahua, THAT I would pay money to see. A three foot-long body on three inch-long legs. Golf ball-sized head with pancake-sized ears. Good grief - this is also why I'm not a scientist person, cuz I would make some weird crap.

So coming to work today has made me ask yet again, why don't they just give us the rest of this week off? Who really wants to come back to work after having Wednesday off? Still two more days to go! It's like a second Monday, and nobody appreciates that.

Did you see that Rush Hour 3 is coming out in August? My wife and I are gonna go see it when it comes out for my birthday. That will be very very fun. Neither Jackie Chan or Chris Tucker are that funny by themselves, but with the right script, they can be hilarious together.

We are all waiting with baited breath for the arrival of Speck Singleton! (I know his real name, but I'm not allowed to say it). He was supposed to come out last friday, and he's being stubborn. Of course, who am I to speak; I was a week and a half late. I think the person most ready for him to come out is his mommy. She would love to be able to do normal things again like paint her toenails, and fit into most of her shirts again, and all those things us unpregnant people take for granted. Let's all hope that he comes out soon! We're all also hoping he doesn't come out on a special day. We missed out on July 4th, and I think the parents are hoping he's not born on 07-07-07. That would be kiiiiinda cool, but only for so long.

My wife's birthday is coming up soon too. She'll finally turn 21 on the 15th. I can finally take her clubbing!! Ha ha, just kidding, I've never set foot in a club, and I don't care if I ever do, unless it's as a Law Enforcement officer stopping a fight. Hee hee, high-power pepper spray. Sooooo much fun. Nah, seriously though, I'm getting her a . What? You actually thought I was gonna tell you? No no no no no. She reads this blog. Honey, I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna spoil the suprise. Besides, she always guesses what I'm getting her anyway. I'm sure this post has gone on for too long already, so I'll end it.

Questions to Ask Yourself...

2007-07-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

**What if the birthing process involved popping the woman’s stomach open like a pimple?
**What if we walked on our hands instead of our feet?
**What if the 70’s never happened?
**What if our clothes were adhesive like band-aids?
**What if our appendages (arms, legs, fingers, etc.) snapped on and off like a socket set?
**What if Superman was real?
**Where would he live?
**Would he still wear spandex?

I feel that these questions (and more to come later) should be considered at least once a day. Don't you?

2007-07-03T14:25:00.001-05:00

I would love to go here someday

IS the Customer Always Right?

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

Been a while huh?

Why does every post need a title??

Hello you happy peoples...

Been a While...

Can You Believe It?

No, I'm not dead...

She's Encaptured!!

My Daughter is Finally Here...

Hmm...

Day 283

No, I'm not dead...

March is here!

Humor For Lexophiles (Lovers of Words)

Another Week Begins

Larry the Cable Guy...soooooo bad

Friday Again

)(*&@#$(&^*#&^

Monday

Weekend's here, having fun yet?

Fun at Four

Friday!!

Slight Overkill on the Gun Control

Friday...yay

Again, been forever...

Already Over...

It's been forever, I know...

Things to Consider...Part Two

Guess What We Did......

Poem of English

Finally At Home!!

Back to Work

Day Off Number One

Sympathy

What's Happening to America?

IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!

MEEP MEEP!!!

Top Seven Office Pet Peeves

I'm Back

Guess What...

Zzzzzzz......

Ouch

Oh Friday, how I love thee

Whose Halfing Fun Two Dei?

School again!

Friday Fun

Whoosawhatsit?

Hullo, Hello, Hallo!

Number 3 coming up...

A new definition of stupid

Ugh

Second Place

Good Morning!

Monday!

Weekend!!

I have a second blog for you to enjoy...

Friday and about time

Thursday is here!

Stupid People

Monday

Finally Friday again

Thursday's Thoughts

Been a while...

Saturday! Finally!

Friday!

Thursday

Meat (It's Tuesday, by the way)

Thursday!

What a World

Mondee, Monday, Munday...

Friday...finally?

Thursday! Almost Friday...but not

Tuesday

Almost Friday...But Not

Wednesday Woes

Cool Map Quiz Thing

For Lynne

Friday!

Happy August!

)(&@#$(&^#&^