"Connecting who we are"

I've been thinking about Lithuania recently and am now in part because I'm listening to Ben Jelen who I first heard on that trip. On my way to Lithuania I read "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" and I listend repeatedly to the Maverick record label radio station on the plane. They played 4 Ben Jelen Songs, 4 The Shore songs, 4 Alanis songs and 4 of Tyler somebody. I bought Ben Jelen as soon as I arrived in Lithuania and it was waiting for me at home when I returned. Later that year I stumbled across The Shore in Chicago.

On Saturday, Lisa and I went to the Wright Patterson Air Force Base Museum in Dayton, Ohio on our way home from visiting with family in Middletown (Metro Cincy). A number of our family members went as well. Part of the museum dealt with the holocaust and included a map with swastikas marking the locations of concentration camps. In a flash I remembered visiting a holocaust museum in Eastern Europe. It was increadibly sobering. I remember walking into a small room in the museum and being told that hundreds of Jews were housed in a room this size. Unbelievable.

On another day in Lithuania we drove far into the countryside and ended outside an old rusted fence. Through the fence lay four below-ground silos...a former Russian nuclear missile base. We climbed down into one of the silos, walking underground in dimly-lit hallways hallways. Then crawling up through a hatch into the actual silo. Things you don't have the opportunity to see every day.

Another day in Lithuania we visited the Hill of Crosses:

I was in a forest over the Baltic Sea, on a mountain where I could see Russia, in a Latvian Opera House.

What an opportunity. And I almost didn't go...the day before I left, I was sad to be leaving the dorms early.

My cubemate has a sign that says, "Always do what scares you." Not sure what to think about that. Today, I think it's great advice.

"And party every day"

Thanksgiving Eve was a nice evening spent amongst friends. We dined, we conversed, we bowled, we rocked out to Guitar Hero.

Philip, how do I miss thee...let me count the recent ways:

1) You are at a moped rally in Michigan or Ohio.
2) You are in Nebraska or Lafayette to spend time with family.
3) You are hosting a moped rally at your house.

To all a good night and a Merry Thanksgiving.

"It starts in my toes"

12 hours from now I expect to be on my way to good old Indiana and to a fine dinner with some of you I hope.

24 hours from now I hope to be up to my ears in turkey at the annual Rogers' Thanksgiving.

36 hours from now I'll be in Cincinatti doing who knows what at the Martin's annual get together.

48 hours from now I'll be exchanging Christmas presents with the Martins at that annual get together.

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So that's what I'm up to. Now it's time to go hunt down a couple of white elephant gifts for those Martins, play one last game of Madden 05 before the long weekend, get some sleep and work for about 3 hours in the morning.

See you soon, I hope.

"How about it"

Lisa's been down with a cold for the past week. I caught it yesterday. Sunday was a miserable day in which I never got dressed and never left the house. I felt pretty miserable. I went to bed at midnight not knowing whether I would have the chills all night or break out in a feverish sweat. I wore a hooded sweatshirt to bed, usually I sleep shirtless (seems odd to type topless since I'm a man). Amazingly, I woke up around 3:30 and felt pretty OK. My throat was no longer sore and my body temperature felt normal. I couldn't sleep so I watched about 90 minutes of the X Effect on MTV, which is hard to turn off once you start an episode even thought it's another trashy dating show from the Music Television channel.

Anyway, I thought it was odd that I woke up feeling so much better until I found out that my Mom was praying for me in the middle of the night because she couldn't sleep. She said, "Praying's a good thing to do when you can't sleep." I said, "It's probably better than watching an hour and a half of MTV."

Today I still felt a bit foggy but tonight I'm feeling even better so that's good.

Happy almost Thanksgiving everyone. And to Phil and Wilbe, I too will attempt to update more often beginning next week. (Because I'll be out-of-town most of this week.)

Currently watching: The Bachelor -- can you believe that guy didn't pick anyone?
Currently listening to: The Killers -- favorite songs off of Sawdust after a weekend's listen: Romeo and Juliet, Sam's Town, Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf
Last movie watched: Slaughter High (1986)

"Stay in the game"

Going through old photos my Grandma's cleaning out so they don't get lost in her absence someday, I stumbled across this little piece of gold.
For any of you who ever doubted the tales of basketball at Liberty Christian:

Note that Josh didn't make the photo section, but he's in there. Happy upcoming Birthday to Richard R. Lehman. I hope you have some time to hang out on Saturday.

And to head off any jokes about weight or giant adam's apples in advance, let me say what's on everyone's mind:

"Man that huge 35-pounds of adam's apple must have dropped into his stomach sometime over the past 8 years."

"Golden arms, golden arms"

What is happening to quality? With a little patience I guess poor quality can pay-off for the average consumer such as Rogers and me. On Saturday the following events occurred, 75% of which were too our benefit:

• Arrive home with our Chinese take-out only to find Lisa's white rice is actually fried rice. Back to the store we go. They replace it.
• Go to Verizon Wireless to have my phone numbers transferred to my Blackberry. They succeed in doing this, but can't figure out what code to put in on their computer to charge us the $10 so they say "Don't worry about it. Merry Christmas." It was free.
• At Target we try to buy a curling iron for my Grandma for Christmas only to find that it has been recalled. Because we had to go get another one and get back in line, they gave us a coupon for $3 off of any purchase.
• Because we'd saved $10 at Verizon, we decided to splurge and buy a $10.99 Stuffed Crust at Pizza Hut. We make our order and go to the store. Upon arrival, they seem to have never entered the order and have to take it all over again. They give us our pizza for free. (The confusing part was that they clearly took my number, because they even read me my order from the last time I'd ordered there in case I wanted the same thing.) They knew how to take the order, but not place the order.

So with a grand savings of $24+ tax Lisa and I had a better Saturday than we did a Wednesday or a Thursday. That's $24 more to put toward Christmas presents or 7 Eleven Big Gulps.

(Of course that "better" was only enhanced by renting and watching Black X-Mas.)

Hey, we'll be in town this weekend. I hope to see some of you on Saturday.

"A tired song keeps playing"

Halloween (Yesterday)

1) 8:45 a.m. -- I'm on my way to work in stop-and-go traffic. Suddently, a scream comes out of my mouth as my car jerks forward into the car in front of me. It was a five-car pileup, and I was smack dab in the middle of it. No injuries thankfully, although I definitely got a little whiplash. Actually, my car wasn't too badly hurt either. Bumpers are amazing! Consider that I was hit hard enough to hit my car into another car and that car into a fifth car, and I'm basically left with a dent near the license plate. I drive on to work without any further incident.

2) 1: 15 p.m. -- I'm at work and I get a message from Lisa who I had just spoken with not an hour before. She says, "I've got bad news, so please call me back." I immediately assume someone has died because of the sound of her voice. Instead, her new Company informed her that she was "laid off" and they are eliminating her position. They told her they couldn't afford to pay her and didn't have enough for her to do. That was it. Yes, this is the Company for which she quit her other job one month ago and missed our family vacation. She got screwed.

November 1 (Today)

3) 8:25 a.m. -- I get in my car to go to work. It doesn't start at all. The lights and CD player come on, but no go. I assume this is somehow related to the accident, as it didn't at first appear to be the battery. I guess I'll work from home today.

4) 9:00 a.m. -- I, in my sock, step in a huge steaming pile of Grace's poop in our office. It gets all over my jeans.

5) 11:15 a.m. -- Upon closer inspection, the battery was the issue. We push it into the street so we can get Lisa's car out and we jump it. It starts so we're off to the Collision Experts to get an estimate -- not wanting to risk it not starting again. On the way, the battery light comes on. Oh, crap. I've jumped several times in my 8 year driving history, and I don't remember seeing that light afterwards. Normally you've drained the battery but once you get it going it is OK. We make it to the car place. While we're inside giving them our info, the car dies. We're told this is likely a bad alternator, not accident related so it won't be covered and they quote us at $475 ($300 for the part, $175 for labor).

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Praise the Lord, it turns out to in fact be a bad battery, which is only $125. This is received as extremely good news after 30 hours of bad news.

Interestingly, the only thing out of the past two days that REALLY made me angry was stepping in the dog poop.