Journal Entry

Thursday, September 27th
Last night was a pleasantly relaxing one. I finished typing up the first draft of Royal Holiday and got that to D-- and T-- for reviews. Then I got home and talked with the wife a bit, and then went back to my office to play some Heroes for about an hour. I finished the Human campaign.

Then we had beef fried rice that was really good, and played with AB, then we ran up to Blockbusters (and stopped at Braums on the way home) before settling in to watch the season premier of Earl. Pretty good stuff. The Office was on last night, too, but T-- didn't want to watch another hour of sitcoms, so she went to bed around 9:00 to read some, and I tried to play some more Heroes. Unfortunately, in the first game of the Demon campaign, it keeps crashing after my second fight. I'll have to see if I can figure that out.

And, 10:30-ish, I went to bed. Not a terribly exciting day, but it was nice to chill out and stay home for an evening. Tonight should be quite different, so...calm before the storm, or something.

Journal Entry

Today, I finished typing up a long backlog of longhand "Royal Holiday" pages. It feels good to have that done. I've got about a dozen pages left in the story, before I get to the end. I'm looking forward to finishing.

We'd made some tentative plans to have dinner with K-- and N-- and D-- tonight -- something we often do on Wednesdays -- but N-- ended up with an appointment for a haircut around 5:00. T-- was generous enough to skip her plans for the evening, so we were all able to get together for dinner at Friday's at 6:30.

That was fun, and the food was good. T-- and I shared the old Jack Daniels Tower (now it's just the Sampler, and doesn't come on a tower, but it's the same things). Delicious. Everyone else got desserts, too, and we got to try some, which was good enough for me.

Afterward, we came home and played with AB for a while, then D-- and I ran up to Barnes and Noble to look around. He found a book he wanted, and bought AB a cloth book for her to play with and chew on. He'd been wanting to get her something of the sort for a while now, and while we were looking we found a "My First Photo Album," which even has places to put pictures. It was too perfect. She's going to love it.

Anyway, after that he went home, and I worked on my homework for class. I read two chapters from the book, and now it's time for bed.

Journal Entry

It was a really busy week, last week. Some of the highlights have shown up already on T--'s and N--'s blogs, but I feel like I've got to fill out the form, anyway.

Tuesday, September 18th
Tuesday morning I had a doctor's appointment. I've been getting high blood pressure readings for about a year now (ever since I learned about AB, really), and it got to the point where people were threatening me with sad faces if I didn't go get checked out.

So I told my boss I needed the morning off, and that I'd maybe take the whole day. My appointment wasn't until 9:00, though, so I was looking forward to sleeping in. At 6:30, T-- came crashing through the bedroom door with a screaming AB and said, "Here, hold her for me while I get a rag."

I sat up, grabbed the baby, and noticed all the blood pouring out of her mouth. She had fallen while playing in the living room, and somehow ripped that bit of skin connecting the upper lip to the gums, and it was bleeding like crazy. I got her to calm down while I was holding her, and then T-- got her cleaned up, but she spent all day going through that cycle. She'd chew on a toy or suck on a pacifier and it would start bleeding again, and she'd start crying and make a huge mess, and then we'd calm her down and try to get the bleeding to stop.

Really, it wasn't that big of a deal, but it was a lot of work, for both of us. So, yeah, I ended up taking the whole day off. I did go in for my appointment, though, which happened to be during the worst time for T--. But, y'know, what can you do?

Doc said I looked good apart from the blood pressure, and gave me a month's worth of samples for a BP medicine that he said (and N-- confirmed) is a really good one. I'll probably be on it for a couple years, if not for life, but it's supposed to be really helpful.

And, while we're dealing with AB troubles all day, we also know we've got the marriage class to go to that evening. Last week's was a tough one, discussing all the things each of us do that hurt the other. Not fun to discuss, not even fun to think about. We both had a lot of trouble getting motivated to do the homework, and we'd kind of put it all off to do during the day Tuesday. Instead, we spent the day chasing the baby, so we were really unprepared for class.

Anyway, right around 5:00, K-- and N-- called and offered to bring over dinner. That was fun, and brightened up my afternoon considerably. We had fajitas from Taco Cabana, and chilled for a few, then headed up to the church when D-- showed up to watch the baby.

I had an uncomfortable experience in class that night, over some confusion as to how "voluntary" the sharing portion of the class was. Turns out, it's not voluntary, but by the time I learned that, I was in a pretty embarrassing situation, with a big ol' spotlight on me. That sucked. Anyway, at least now I know for future classes.

I'm glad we went to that class, though. Out of all of them, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the most valuable one we do, because it was good to hear everybody talking about the difficulty they had with the homework, and discussing such things. That was definitely worth being there for.

Wednesday, September 19th
Wednesday night, K-- and D-- and I went to the movies. We'd talked about going to see Dragon Wars and/or Shoot 'em Up. Then we learned that Dragon Wars was a Korean-made, low-budget cheese fest, and decided to save our eight bucks (which probably is code for "go see it when D--'s not around to make fun of us"). So, Shoot 'em Up it was.

B-- and E-- should get it and watch it on DVD, when it comes out (unless they have a strong desire to see it apart from my recommendation). As for everyone else...I can't think of another human being I could recommend that movie to. K-- and D-- both enjoyed it, but....yeah. It's ludicrous. It's absurd, and probably the most violent movie I've ever seen. Crass, out the ass. But it was fun.

After the movie, around 9:30, we came out of the mall to find K--'s driver-side window smashed out. Someone was probably trying to go for the GPS unit mounted on his windshield, and spooked when his car alarm went off, because there was nothing missing from the car. But, yeah, whoever did it won't be caught, so K-- is stuck with a $150 glass bill. The security guard who filled out the paperwork on it said he'd had a lot of windows broken out, in his time, and recommended a particular repair crew. K-- got them out to his place Thursday night, and got that taken care of. Ugh.

Thursday, September 20th
Thursday night we had the church picnic. They claim to do one every month in the summer, but I don't think it actually happens that often. Anyway, T-- heard about this one and I didn't have any good excuses to get out of it, so we went out to a private park across town around 6:30, and had some pot luck. T-- was kind enough to make me a sandwich beforehand, so I wasn't entirely at the mercy of the old church ladies' cooking.

In addition to pot luck, the theme for the dinner was "Pie Contest!" (The exclamation mark is part of the title, not my own.) T-- baked two apple crumble pies for the event (blogged on her MySpace), and they were amazingly delicious. I'm not a constant fan of fruit pies of any sort, but this one was awesome. It could be the massive quantity of brown sugar melted over the top that won me over. I'm no food critic, but that strikes me as a winning combination.

Anyway, I tried about seven pies. Everybody voted, and they said we'd learn the results on Sunday. So, for narrative reasons, I'll save that information until I write about Sunday. HaHA! Building a little suspense in the ol' blog, I am. A writer practices good writing techniques, always. That's the rule. But, yeah, anyone who's read T--'s MySpace already knows the answer. And pretty much anyone who knows her.

Friday, September 21st
For reasons inexplicable, Friday night was the OU game. I know, I know, they're a college team, but yeah...they played on Friday night. Against Tulsa, who was supposed to have a pretty good passing offense. Nobody was worried, but we'd heard things, y'know?

We had dinner with K-- and N-- at Freddy's (always a good time), and then I went over to their place to watch the game. Tulsa scored first, and in the first six minutes game-time, Tulsa put up 14 points. That was a little alarming. Of course, they also used up all of their timeouts for the half, to do that. K-- pointed out that they probably had to do that to get their offense some rest, which was a point well made. It was clear they were pulling out all the stops to make a statement early, but once the timeouts were gone, our guys just rolled over them. OU's final score was in the sixties. Fun.

Afterward, I hung around and watched a couple episodes of Dr Who with K--, who's trying to get into the series. It's a good show. I'm looking forward to seeing more.

Saturday, September 22nd
Saturday I'd offered to spend at home, with T--. We'd had a wildly busy week, and we were planning to watch two games on Sunday, so it seemed wise to just set aside some home time. I mowed in the morning, and then we went grocery shopping together. We spent most of the afternoon working on homework for our marriage seminar, and I'm glad we did. We covered a lot of material, and even though this was pretty sensitive stuff, it was nothing compared with the week before, so we were able to talk pretty freely. That was a good experience.

In the evening, most of our work done, we watched a little TV, and then I decided to run up to Lowe's and grab some storage stuff to help organize the garage, and my office closet. I've mentioned a lot of work on the garage recently, and there was really one last major change I wanted to make, rearranging some stuff to make more room for car doors to open. To do that, we needed a new place for T-- to keep her catalogs and other work stuff, and she'd been wanting a closing cabinet for that for a while. I've also been wanting a set of stacking drawers to organize the cables and connectors and computer parts crammed in my office closet, pretty much since we moved into the house.

So, I ran out and bought all that stuff. If you haven't shopped for storage solutions, you'd probably be surprised how much they cost. I managed to find what I wanted, though, and brought it home to put together. After that...well, I get a little manic when I'm working on a project, wanting to get it done, so I got the cabinet built, and then I took it out to the garage (and it's probably 9:00 at that point), and then I spent some time rearranging things out there, and I finally made myself stop working on that to come inside and watch some TV with T--.

Then I ended up, a couple hours later, setting up the drawers in my office closet and working on that until one in the morning. It's just who I am. Don't judge me.

Anyway, Saturday was a lot of work, but I'm impressed how much I got accomplished. The improvements in the garage and the closet were awesome, and like I said, I'm really glad we got the homework done.

Sunday, September 23rd
Sunday morning, after church, we went to K-- and N--'s to watch the Vikings/Chiefs game with a bunch of friends. B-- is a long-time Vikings fan, and as I mentioned back in preseason, our old hero Adrian Peterson is now starting running back for the Vikings, so we were all interested in watching it. They also invited my sister's family over, because J-- is a big Chiefs fan (and, y'know, just for the opportunity to hang out).

Early in the game, the Vikings were rocking on the Chiefs. Enough so that B-- started cheering for the Chiefs because he felt sorry for J--. Unfortunately, about twenty minutes after J-- left (S-- had a photoshoot to get to, and needed J-- to watch the kids), the Chiefs turned it around and tore up. It was an exciting game. Adrian Peterson was amazing (the commentators kept saying he was carrying the rest of the team).

K-- grilled hotdogs for lunch, and they were awesome. T-- brought some leftover apple pie, and it was just a big ol' party. Everyone had a good time.

After that, I borrowed K--'s distribution spreader and took a bag of grass seed he'd picked up for me, and headed home. In church Sunday morning, they'd said that the pie contest winner would be announced Sunday night. So, T-- really wanted to go to that, but I had so much stuff I still needed to get done before the weekend ended (and that necessarily meant "before the Cowboys game started"). So I dropped her off at church, then went home to seed my yard.

The new spreader worked way better than the old drop spreader I'd used, and I was able to seed the whole back yard in about ten minutes. I then broke out some insect control stuff that's also supposed to be spread like that (which I never used, because the old spreader took so long), and put that out, front and back. D-- came over early in that process, asking me if I wanted to hit Best Buy, but I told him I was busy. So he pulled out his laptop and read some webcomics on my couch while I did yard work.

Anyway, got all the poison down and set up a sprinkler, and then grabbed a quick shower, and was able to pick up T-- just a few minutes after church ended. That was a lot accomplished in one hour.

And when I showed up to pick her up, she was proudly brandishing her silver spatula! She got second prize in the contest, which was much deserved. If you haven't already, send her a congratulations for that.

We dropped her off at the house, then D-- and I ran up to the barbecue place next to Blockbuster and grabbed a small family deal to go. Chopped brisket and hot links, which was enough for all of us to have heaping plates, and still enough for my lunch on Monday. Awesome stuff.

Then K-- called to say he couldn't make it over, so D-- and I watched the game together. It was an incredible game. Both teams were playing really well (Dallas vs. Chicago). In the second half, though, Romo just laid it down. I think we won 34-10. Woot woot.

Monday, September 24th
So, anyway, Monday after I got home from work, I went to Best Buy with D--. He'd finished Bioshock and the anime series he was watching, and needed something new for entertainment. We looked through all the games, but the only one that really tempted was Madden '08 for the Wii. Then we went and looked at high-end TVs instead. That was a lot of fun. He's still needing to make the upgrade to HD, and his small apartment (and bachelor lifestyle) makes a big ol' wall-mount LCD the perfect choice.

Anyway, we were there for a while, then came home and T-- made us some chicken crescent squares that are just awesome. It's a recipe she started on just after we got married, and I always love it. Yumm. After dinner, it was already 8:00-ish. We watched the season premier of How I Met Your Mother, and an episode of Rules of Engagement which is another show in the same vein, but it's got David Spade. Then we watched the season premier of Heroes, which didn't really disappoint.

Then D-- went home, and I did the last little bit of homework I had to fill out, and then it was bedtime.

Tuesday, September 25th
Yesterday, I found a chunk of free time in the afternoon, and spent a lot of it typing up the many pages of Royal Holiday that I had handwritten (and I'm starting to think it's going to have to switch back to "Royal Holiday," which is a shame, because I was looking forward to trying to push the short-format novel). I'm nearly caught up on the typing part, and the longhand part is nearly done, so that's the sort of news that appeals to my manic drive to complete a project. Wahaa!

Around 4:00, I got a call from T-- saying she'd just heard from the people leading our marriage seminar with a reminder that we were supposed to provide the snacks this week. Ack! I suggested chips and salsa, because I knew we had the stuff handy, and it feeds a crowd. She ran up to the store and got some extra chips, and the stuff to make guacamole. It was a real rush to get everything done before the class started at 6:30, but she managed. And she made some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches for D-- and me. She's the whole package.

So, we left AB with D--, and went to class for two hours. Our snacks were a huge hit. I think everyone there complimented either the salsa or the guacamole, if not both. So, y'know, good for us. Woohoo.

I got home, and I was feeling too socialized, so I retreated to my office for some video games. I played Heroes for a couple hours, and made it to bed around 10:30.

And, amazingly enough, I'm finally finished with that update.

Webcomic

I've been reading a webcomic called Achewood, which is...quite entertaining. It's not family friendly, by any means. But the artist has developed some incredibly detailed characters. He maintains blogs for all of them. It's wild.

Anyway, I just read this line in an edition of The Phillipe Times' Friday Facts:

"Soccer is popular everywhere but America. Why, you ask? Because Americans like when things happen."

I liked that bit. Also, the following image is the first panel in a recent strip...that actually becomes one of the happier things to happen within the storyline, but Roast Beef is just a sad ol' cat. What can I say?

Journal Entry

I can't say it was good to be back to work, but I had a good day nonetheless. As you saw, I had time to do an update for the weekend. I also had some time to take a lunch at Taco Bell, and got four or five pages written on Royal Holiday.

Here's what I have left: sprint to the docks, Corin scene, pirate scene, brawl scene (straight from the movie, with all ending up in the river), escape scene, full disclosure in an alley outside the palace (also straight from the movie), the Commission of the Swords the following morning (adapted from the movie, but with a much happier ending), and then the words "The End."

That's it! Not so bad. I discovered today that I've been writing Royal Holiday at exactly the same pace I used for Sleeping Kings, and then I immediately wished that I'd been publishing it in the same way. I miss the feedback, and the format. Anyway, it's nearly done and I should have it available for review shortly. You can all expect a big homework assignment when that's done.

Yeah, but most of my day was spent on research and paperwork. I've got to get a bunch of Safety Risk Management documents done, or planes are going to start falling out of the sky. (No, not really).

After work, I stopped by the chiropractor and he made me feel less bad (I wouldn't go so far as to say "good"). Then home to play with the baby and chat with T-- until she left to pick us up a pizza from Mazzio's. It was fantastically good.

Then we got the old band back together to get Dad his mount in Scholo. We packed 323 levels worth of characters (and 13 years of combined gameplay experience) into a Scholo run that only took us to Rattlegore. Umm...for everyone who hasn't tried that, it's basically the equivalent of pitting OU's football team against Utah State. Anyway, it was fun. Still took two hours because the event is slow-paced, but we all had a good time.

That took until 9:30, and then D-- and I went for a walk. One of his friends is starting to make noises about a business idea that will develop into what NewMyth was. So I'm trying to decide whether to get all excited about it again and bring that guy in, or review my depressing list of Reasons It Won't Work, and then email him a copy.

Anyway, that was an hour walk, and then I came home and wrote a description of a boring weekday that ran longer than my review of a pretty eventful weekend. Go figure. I'm off to bed.

Journal Entry

Friday, September 14th
Friday was a busy day at work, catching up on all the things I'd put off to finish the A/C manual. It was a good sort of busy, though, and I finished the day ready for the weekend.

I came home, and had some chores I'd offered to do for T--. The biggest one was vacuuming the house. I started going to the chiropractor last week (did I mention that?) and he told me definitely not to do any vacuuming. But, yeah, what does he know? He's just a doctor....

So an hour later, I was sitting on the couch unable to move because of the pain in my lower back. Ugh. It's not really that bad, though, because I don't really like to move. So I watched some TV with T-- and waited for Mom and Dad to get home from work.

I'd offered to play some WoW with them, and Dad really wanted help getting his epic mount (a rather long-running quest), so I joined them around 5:30 and we spent a couple hours getting mostly done. The end of the quest requires another paladin, and D-- had offered to help with that (which would make it easy-breezy), so we decided to call it a night at that point. Good thing, too. I had to go play host for T--'s parents.

Oh! Before that, N-- called to invite us out to dinner which was an extraordinarily tempting offer, but I already had the WoW commitments. I had a good time, though, so I can't really regret missing out on the Jack Daniels Burger.

Anyway, when T--'s parents got in, we all sat around and talked for a while, and then T-- and her dad ran up to Wal-Mart to try to find him an OU shirt. They were gone for over an hour, but they brought back ice cream. We each had a big bowl, and then went straight to bed. Experts say that's the best thing to do with ice cream....

Saturday, September 15th
Saturday morning John and I watched AB while T-- and her mom went shopping. T-- and her mom spent a lot of time shopping, Saturday. They only left us with AB for a couple hours, though. Around 11:00 they got back, and at the same time K-- and N-- showed up, along with D--, to head to Norman for the OU game. N-- got us all tickets a couple weeks ago, through her work.

It was a blowout game. Everyone knew it would be. In fact, it was so foreordained that they didn't even televise it, so it was a good thing we went. A good team is fun to watch, even when it's mostly unopposed, so I think we all had a really good time. We've managed to go to one game a year for the last four or five. It's been fun.

That did take most of the day, though. We left the house around 11:00, and the game started at 2:15, and we stayed for the whole thing, so we got back into OKC around 7:00. We stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings and picked up some dinner and took it back to the house, which happened to coincide with one of T-- and Karla's brief rest stops at the home for the day, so they got to eat. After that, they went back out to Kohl's (it was nearly 9:00, but the shop didn't close until 11:00) and took John with them. K-- and N-- went home, too, exhausted after the day at the game. It is just an exhausting experience.

D-- hung around then, and we tried to watch the USC v. Nebraska game, but it got depressing pretty quickly and we had no choice but to turn it off. The commentators were just too infuriating. There are times I think USC could just stop charging tuition, and instead set up a kissing booth staffed by the football team, and fund their entire academic program off the donations of the national sports media. I hate those guys so much.

Argh.

Sunday, September 16th
Sunday morning we went to church and I got two or three pages written on "Royal Holiday" (which, incidentally, is very much on the verge of becoming Royal Holiday, if you catch my drift). During the sermon, McElroy was talking about some famous classic hymn that was written when a dude was inspired during a sermon and just scribbled down a poem, which became the song through an interesting and convoluted means.

Anyway, Karla looked over at me, frantically scribbling in my scribblebook, and raised an eyebrow. I quiet-laughed, as one does in such situations, but frankly, I'm writing a cheap rip-off of a third-rate Hepburn movie set in an overwraught and generic fantasy world, as an aside to a larger and still fairly cliche story. So, yeah, I don't think it's really the same thing.

After church, we went to Abuelo's, and K-- and N-- and D-- all joined us. It was a fantastic lunch (Abuelo's always is). Then we split up, and the family went back to the house to help T-- get ready for a purse party at 3:00. A few minutes before that was supposed to start, D-- showed up to take me over to K--'s place to watch the Cowboys game. Thank goodness for late afternoon kickoffs, know what I'm sayin'?

That was a really good game. N-- went to the purse party, but she called on her way home around 5:00 and asked if we needed any snacks (which, natch, we did), so we finished the game in high style. As did the Cowboys. It's looking like a good year!

Then I went home, and I really should have spent the evening working on homework for our marriage seminar (as should have T--), but we discussed with open, honest communication, and both, in harmonious consensus, agreed that we, as a family, ought to procrastinate. So we watched some Dead Zone and I played Heroes on T--'s laptop, and it was a good night.

Journal Entry

Today was a good day.

You already saw my pictures, probably. I'm glad I finally got that done. I've found a few more, mostly older pictures (closer to high school age), so people checking out my Facebook profile can remember who I was. I'll get those up in a couple days.

But, yeah, work went well. I was busy every minute of the day, today, but about 4 minutes before I was scheduled to go home, I finished up my major project. I sent off the email and turned it over to the engineer. He'll have to review it, and my editor will have to review it (did I explain this already?). Anyway, it won't be done by the end of the day tomorrow, but I think the people interested will be pretty impressed with what we managed to do nonetheless.

But, yeah, I got a ton accomplished at work, and I know for a fact that it's quality work. That's a good feeling. Especially knowing I managed that even under a major rush. So, woohoo for me.

Then I got home and played with my baby some, talked with T-- some, and then I suggested a new recipe for a leftovers dinner -- meatball grilled cheese -- and it turned out so good. And after that, I beat Overlord. And after that, even though it was already time for bed, I somehow convinced myself to go for a walk anyway. D-- came over to walk with me, and I just got in. I've been pressing it a little harder lately, so my legs are a little sore, but it's the good kind.

That's all for today. Hope you're well. Keep in touch.

Picture Pages, Picture, etc.

By popular demand, I've added a bunch more pictures of "that baby." Just click the "Photos" link above, and choose the "AB" album from the list at the right.

I also added a bunch of pictures of me, for my profile (and friends trying to look me up on MySpace or Facebook). Most of those have pictures of that baby in them, too.

Then there's a third new album with all my old sketches in it. It's completely against the rules to make fun of me for them. Seriously. I'll do a blog post in a couple days discussing my favorites among them, as I promised a while back.

Journal Entry

My busy week at work continues, but it's getting better.

I took some loaves of bread that T-- made to work for a bake sale today, and they were a big hit. I also got some serious praise from the editor in my writing group, who's been reviewing the work I've done so far this week, on my major project. It's the first time I've actually turned in a writing product since they hired me, and it's good to hear that they're impressed with the work I did.

T-- was going to come to the bake sale, and bring AB to show off to my coworkers, but the bake sale sold out early (T--'s friendship bread sold for $10 a loaf!), and we had some weird security stuff going on, so we settled for just meeting for lunch. We had Whataburger, which was a fun break from an otherwise harrowing day.

I got through it, though, and I'm about a quarter finished with Section 7 (out of 13). We might still make Friday, which is our deadline, but I'm doubtful. I'll be done by then, but after I finish writing a section it has to be reviewed by my editor (the one who praised me today), and by the engineer, and that takes time. I'm guessing the engineer will probably work all weekend so we can submit it as finished first thing Monday morning, but that's just a guess.

Anyway, that was work stuff. For the first time this week, I was able to leave work on time. I got home and T-- made some spaghetti and meatballs with the a new meatball recipe. I told her they were the best I've ever had in a spaghetti-based environment. I think she took that for a joke. It was really good, though.

After that, she took AB to class at church, and I went to my office to do a little work, and then play some Overlord. That latter was a mostly frustrating experience, and I didn't stick at it long. T-- got home and I helped her with some chores, then I headed out for a walk.

I tried repeatedly to call D-- to get him to join me, but his phone was apparently acting up. He finally received one of the many messages I left, and I backtracked half of my walking route to get back to his place. We drank some wine and talked, and then I headed home. All told, I got my hour walk in, but it took ninety minutes because of the stop. Not too bad. He was watching the OU/Miami game when I got there, for an added bonus.

Anyway, it has been a long day, and I'm exhausted, so I'm heading to bed. I hope everyone's well.

Journal Entry

Tuesday, September 11th
Yesterday I worked late again, getting home with just enough time to eat a sandwich T-- had waiting before we headed off to our marriage seminar class. That started at 6:30. It involves sharing time (think of a support group setting, albeit with a less frightening affliction), which is not my forte. We were told last week that the sharing's not compulsory, but last night it was. We were told last night that it won't be in the future. We'll see.

Anyway, the class itself still seems like a pretty good opportunity to me. T-- and I tried to work our way through His Needs, Her Needs a couple years ago (when we really should have been going to all-out counseling), and we didn't make it halfway through. We're in a better position to benefit from the low-level techniques it offers, at this point, and I think the peer pressure associated with the support group atmosphere should help us follow through. We'll see.

But, yeah, that ate up most of the night. Afterward we stopped by Braums on the way home, with K-- and N--, and then got home around 9:00 to let D-- off the hook (he's babysitting AB for us every Tuesday for nine weeks -- what a guy). Then T-- read some on Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and I went to the office to work on my manual. Yay for overtime, I guess.

Journal Entry

Hmm. I've got to either get caught up (so I'm writing 2-3 paragraph entries again), or start living an interesting life. Otherwise, nobody's going to read any of this.

Of course, I choose "get caught up." No one is surprised by this.

Friday, September 7th
Late Thursday night (after a couple Jack and Cokes), I sent a ransom letter to B-- and E-- insisting that they come over Friday night. If I can dig it up, I might post the attached picture here. Maybe. I did a successful job of looking like a serial killer, and I don't really think I want to share that with lots of people. You never know, though.

Anyway, on Friday they graciously accepted, so after I got off work on Friday, I went home to play with AB for a little while, then D-- showed up to hang out, and then B-- and E-- got there around 6:00. We all talked a little bit, I got a call from K-- saying he could come have dinner with us (N-- was in Norman for a work thing -- more on that later), so it was shaping up to be a real party.

B-- and I went to Pizza Hut to order the pizza, which gave us a little time to get caught up. There's been a lot going on, workwise, for both of us. Mine has been better than his. Poor guy.

By the time we got back, K-- was arrived, and among us we devoured two large pizzas. Delicious. Then K-- headed home to pack up an overnight back (more on that later), while the rest of us watched the first episode of Dane Cook's Tourgasm. I've been watching through it, and T-- sat through a couple episodes, and she thought B-- and E-- would like it. I'm not really sure if she was right or not. D-- completely hated it, but he hates Dane Cook. Dummy.

Anyway, 8:30-ish K-- got back and B-- and E-- went home so B-- could get some sleep and/or get back to work. Poor bastard. Then (now it's later), D-- and I drove K-- down to Norman. I'm glad D-- came along, because (A) the drive back would've been pretty dull, alone, and (B) Mustang.

But, yeah, N-- had a conference sort of thing for work that included lots of lectures Friday night (and a fancy free dinner), and then a hotel room and two tickets to the OU game Saturday morning. All paid for. She'd driven down there right after work on Friday, and they didn't really want to drive two cars home in the post-game traffic on Saturday, so we agreed to drop K-- off. Probably left a little before 9:00, and got home around 11:00.

We debated the various merits of Can't Hardly Wait, Empire Records, and Almost Famous, settled on Can't Hardly Wait, and then about a minute into it we swapped it out for The New Guy. Excellent choice, I must say. D-- was up for watching more after that, but I'm getting old. I went to bed around 1:00.

Saturday, September 8th
Saturday was game day. I woke up to rain, so I didn't have to mow. Instead, I went to Wal-Mart with T-- and AB, then got home and turned on the game. It was a fantastic game, but it's been a long time since I've tried to watch an OU game by myself. T-- was there, but she wasn't really watching. She kept wandering into other rooms, taking care of the baby, that sort of thing. Not that I'm complaining. But it's a very different experience in a social environment. K-- and N-- were at the game, like I said, and D-- was spending the afternoon with some friends, one of whom was celebrating a birthday.

Of course, the game made up for it. It was an amazing game. Dad kept calling me, he was so excited about it, so I had to skip as much as possible with the TiVo to get caught up, just so I could answer the phone. But, yeah, that was fun.

Then T-- and I spent most of the evening just hanging around the house. We grabbed some Taco Bell, watched some TV, and just kinda let the day go. In the evening, finally done with his other friends, D-- gave me a call and asked if I was free to go out. We hit the Blues bar downtown for a couple hours, which was a lot of fun. I got in around 1:30, and then (stupidly) stayed up two more hours playing Overlord. It was fun, though. I finally figured out what the arena was for, and put it to good use.

Sunday, September 9th
So, yeah, shame on me, I didn't wake up in time for church. T-- made some lunch, and we spent a couple hours discussing AB's development and some things that have been frustrating us (and how to fix them), and that ended with a trip to Barnes and Noble that proved highly rewarding. We've long been recommending the book On Becoming Babywise as a great model for taking care of and training a newborn, but we'd already gotten past the scope of the book. Turns out there's a Part 2 that covers where AB is now. On the drive home, just reading through the Table of Contents, it seemed like the book directly addressed everything we were having trouble with. So, yay. T-- ended up reading through it for most of the evening.

It's not evening yet, though! I mean, within the narrative. Shortly after we got back from the book store, D-- came over to watch AB while we went to the dollar movies with K-- and N--. We went to see the third Pirates movie, which none of us had seen yet (D-- was horrified at that). It was pretty good. Better than the second, but I thought the resolution of the plot was lame. The movie was fun to watch, but I didn't like the story. Whatcha gonna do, though?

After that we grabbed some Subway and went back to the house to relieve D-- of his duties. Then we watched the Cowboys beat the Giants in heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat, these-idiots-are-going-to-lose-the-game style. N-- left early because she had to wake up early Monday (wimp), but K-- stayed for the whole thing. It was awesome. I'm excited about the team this year.

And, yeah, T-- read her new book through most of that. Sounds like it's got some very helpful stuff in it. I'll read it as soon as she's done.

Monday, September 10th
Then yesterday I started my week of much-overtime, for the project I mentioned last week. (I did mention it, didn't I?) It's pretty brutal work, but I think we can get it done by Friday, and that will be a major weight off all our shoulders. I only stayed at work about an hour late yesterday (although I took some stuff home with me to work on), and then got home in time for D-- to bring us pizza.

His mom was in town on her way to visit his grandma, and she always likes to see us when she's around, so they picked up a Falcone's pizza and some cannolis for all of us, and we all had a great time. They left a little before nine, and I went to do some work in the office.

Oh! Before they got there, I decided on a whim to do some work in the garage, so I got a lot of the messy corner cleaned up, and it's about ready to put cars in there again. I'm looking forward to that.

Now, on a parting note, I just want to say that the phrase, "Then (now it's later)" is one of my favorite things I've ever said on this blog. That is all.

Journal Entry

Okay, that's another long week without updates. The sad fact is, I've gotten to a point where I don't really do much on computers at home. I'll play a video game if I've got hours to burn up, and I update our finances regularly, but I don't really do a very good job of doing the daily sort of chores on my computer at home. I do that stuff in between work projects at work.

I don't think I'm admitting anything particularly damning there. I have a pretty gappy sort of a job, where how busy I am, at any given time, is entirely dependent on breaks in the engineers' meeting schedules. If I've done my work (and I'm a remarkably fast worker, when it's just a bunch of work for me to do on my own), and everyone I'm supposed to be working with is in meetings, then I'm looking at free time, no matter how packed my schedule is.

Anyway, sometime in July I got into the (good) habit of posting regularly in evenings, following my daily walks (another short-lived good habit, but more on that later), and in the process I stopped doing my blog posts while I was at work. Probably a good thing, because a blog post is a little more dedicated personal time than, say, paying an electric bill, but if I did it daily the blog posts didn't take that long.

(Oh, yeah, I'm stuck in a nothing-to-do-until-I hear-back-from-any-one-of-four-different-engineers gap right now, that'll probably carry right through to the end of the day. So here I am.)

Anyway, I haven't been writing much at home, and what I said about not doing chores on my home PC compounds depending how much of a chunk of home time I've got at once. Weekends, I barely do anything (not even the finances). Holiday weekends, less still. So you lost me for five days straight after my last blog post. Of couse, I can only blame laziness for the two days since that.

But here's my roundup:

Thursday, August 30th
Work, as predicted, was awful. But I also predicted having a pretty good weekend following that, and that came through as well. In fact, in spite of the somber tone of my justifyin' and excuse makin' up above, I've had a really great time since last I posted.

Thursday night was the final preseason game for the Cowboys, and it was against the Vikings. I don't think I explained last week why that was a big deal, but B-- is a big Vikings fan, and the Vikings also picked up Adrian Peterson (amazing OU running back) to start for their team this season, so all of us were really looking forward to the game. We even convinced B-- and E-- to come watch it with us.

So, after work, T-- and I packed up the baby, hit Wal-Mart for me to get some Cowboys gear (can you believe I didn't have any? I got my first ever jersey) and then we headed over to K-- and N--'s place. B-- and E-- and D-- all showed up a little while later, so we had quite the party going on. Vikings put in Adrian Peterson for the first play, he ran for, I dunno, six yards, and then they took him out for the rest of the game. Cowboys had their third string in from the start. That was kinda lame. But the group was fun, and we all had a good time.

T-- took the baby home relatively early, as they were both pretty tired, and the B-- and E-- followed a little while after that. D-- had agreed to drive me home, so we stayed through the end of the game. There was some talk of going to watch Transformers (mixed in with making fun of K-- for having to work on Friday), but then D-- and I left and just went driving. We talked about hitting a bar, but it was midnight on a Thursday. Everywhere was closed. We talked some, drove around for a couple hours testing out the new car, and then I finally got home around two in the morning. I crashed.

Friday, August 31st
Friday morning I mowed, after two weeks without it. It was quite the ordeal. I didn't bother doing it the smart way, either. I just kept cramming the mower into too high grass, letting it die, and then backing up and starting it up again. Rinse and repeat, for over an hour. That was no fun.

I spent some of the afternoon playing video games, then some of the evening watching TV with T--. Most of that time I was on her laptop, because I decided to finally update the ID3 information on all our mp3s. We have a lot of music, and almost all of it has either no meta information, or completely wrong information. I never much cared about that, but it was really undermining a lot of the usefulness of her iPod, and I hated to see that opportunity wasted, so I decided to put in the hours to get everything up to date. I ended up working on that all weekend.

A little after 10:00 that night, Mom and Dad got in. At that point, I pretty much expected them to just crash, but we sat up talking until easily midnight, maybe later.

Saturday, September 1st
I was planning to wake up pretty late on Saturday, but didn't really make it. I got up a little after 8:00. I blame the waffles.

Mom and T-- went shopping, looking for ideas for new furnitures for Mom's redecoration. Dad and I stayed home with AB, talked some, and I showed him the new version of Heroes of Might and Magic (well, new to us -- it's over two years old at this point, so antique). Then the girls got back, and D-- showed up, and it was the men's job to go buy groceries and liquor for lunch. S-- called to say she was coming over early, so we waited for J-- and took him along.

Wal-Mart gave us all the groceries we needed. We were standing in line, unloading a cart full of groceries (mostly soda), when D-- noticed that the only meat in the basket was a bunch of chicken breasts. He insisted that it was wrong to say we were "having a barbecue" if we were only cooking chicken. He was horrified at that, so he talked Dad into grabbing a package of brats. Whatever.

Then the liquor store. Now, for some of us (mostly me), the idea of us having to "buy groceries and liquor for lunch" is completely normal, but in case it sounded weird to you, I should point out that we were trying out a recipe for Friday's Jack Daniel's dipping sauce. So, y'know, that was where that came in. I did end up having a Jack and Coke while I was grilling, but that's no great sin. It was after noon, anyway.

The dipping sauce turned out great, as did all the food. B-- and E-- came for that, too, and K-- and N--, and we had my parents and my sister's whole family, so it was a full house. Everyone had a good time, though. Around 4:00 Mom and Dad had to leave.

After that D-- and I headed over to K-- and N--'s to watch the season opener for OU football. T-- said she was just too exhausted after the day's work hosting the party, and I can't really blame her. The rest of us went to get snowcones, though, on our way up to Edmond, and while we were waiting on the snowcones K-- noticed a restaurant in the parking lot there called Ron's Burgers and Chili, or something to that effect. He mentioned it, and D-- and I mentioned that we'd both heard really good things about the place, but never been there. So K-- checked the hours (it was after 6:00 by then, but we'd had a late lunch), and then we went to their place to watch the beginning of the game.

At 7:15 we paused the game (thank Heaven for TiVo), and went for chili burgers. N-- went next door to Mr Sushi (or Sushisandesyo, as the Japanese would say), because she's a girl. I tried some, and it was foul. Whatcha gonna do? The chili burgers were amazing, though. Best I've ever had. Yumm.

Anyway, then back to watch the absolute thrashing that was the rest of the game, and I could go on a rant about not going ahead and scoring one more touchdown at the end of the game to set a school record, but I won't. Not here. Ask me about it anytime, though, if you want to hear me seethe.

After the game, it was late, so when D-- dropped me off...well, naturally I stayed up catalogueing my mp3s. It was the only reasonable thing to do. I think I got through the M's before sleep called me.

Sunday, September 2nd
D-- joined us for church Sunday morning, which was a pleasant surprise. Afterward, we went to Jason's Deli for lunch by an equally surprising consensus among the decision makers (read: girls). Then as we were closing that up, K-- asked if I'd be willing to help him check out some grills at Lowe's or Home Depot. He has a natural gas hookup right on his back porch that would be perfect for a grill (and he's thought that since the day he moved in), but he hadn't gotten one yet.

So a quick lunch stretched into an all afternoon commitment, but it was a fun one. We hit both places, and K-- found the grill he wanted at Lowe's, and then we had to make arrangements to get it moved (he borrowed a truck from a friend from OC), and then we decided to install it. Initially he had intended it to be more a research outing, intel gathering style of thing, but somewhere along the way he decided he wanted to do a Labor Day cookout on Monday, so that's what we worked toward.

So, sometime around 5:00 we all ended up back at K-- and N--'s place, reading through the directions of the propane-to-natural-gas conversion kit and trying to figure out how to connect a 3/8" hose to the 1/2" pipe sticking out of the wall. Still, with surprisingly little difficulty we got his grill set up and attached and tested, and it worked great. We went to Falcone's for some New York-style pizza, and then Johnny's for some delicious-style gelato, and then to the dollar movie to watch Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard. D-- was the only one watching it for the first time, but it was still a really good movie. T-- stayed home with AB, but I promised to take her out to a movie tomorrow to make up for it.

Monday, September 3rd
On Monday, I slept late. When I woke up, T-- and I ran to the grocery store for the week's shopping, then K-- came over to help me drag a two-month-old pile of branches out to the curb for Big Trash Day (which was Wednesday), and he took AB home so T-- and I could go to the movie. We went to see Stardust, which was even more fun watching with her.

As soon as that ended we headed over to K-- and N--'s for the cookout dinner. D-- showed up a little later. We had inch-thick steaks and grilled veggies, and grilled Bananas Callypso for dessert. It was all perfect. For his first try cooking on his new grill, it went as well as it possibly could have. After that, we hung around and talked for a while, then finally headed home and let the long weekend come to an end.

I spent an hour or two working on the mp3s, and mostly finished up that process before heading to bed.

Tuesday, September 4th
Work on Tuesday was pretty brutal. I spent most of the day chasing down info for the project of the engineer who I'd neglected during all the day-long meetings of the previous week. I also learned yesterday that I'll be spending full-time on that same project next week (including overtime), because the deadline for the manual has been bumped up from "before the end of the year" to "close of business next Friday." That is a significant change of pace.

Anyway, I went home from that exhausted. Tuesday night we started a two-month marriage seminar at church based on the book His Needs, Her Needs (which my Dad highly recommends). The class went pretty well, and I'm pretty optimistic about the rest. There are about eight couples, including K-- and N--, several families from our small group, and T--'s chiropractor and his wife.

On that note...she's been trying to talk me into trying out the chiropractor for a while. I periodically wake up with just severe lower back pain, but I just kind of thought of it as one of those things that comes with having a back. I've never had a great deal of faith in the chiropractic practice, since I've never known anyone who seemed to get fixed by it. It didn't seem to have any more long-term effect than, y'know, a massage. But T-- insisted I was wrong about that, and I just happened to get some bad back pain in the last week, and, hey, my insurance covers most of it, so why not try?

So I made an appointment with them while we were chatting after class on Tuesday night.

After that, we went home, watched some TV, then went to bed. There were weird noises, and I just wasn't comfortable for some reason, and, basically, I didn't get any sleep all night. Pretty much the same thing for T--.

Wednesday, September 5th
So, when the alarm came on and I shut it off, I crawled right back into bed and told T-- that I was staying home for the day. She had to do some work and had had trouble finding a babysitter, so I offered to watch AB while she went to work, and that somehow justified my skipping a full day. I dunno.

Anyway, I got up around 9:00 when she left, and I played with AB all morning. It was fun. She didn't eat well when she was supposed to, but she was laughing and smiling and we crawled all over the living room, exploring. I put her down for a nap that she didn't really take, and I went to try to take one which she prevented (by way of crying), and so I finally got up and took her out of her crib and tried to feed her again (and she still didn't eat well), and basically I kept doing that until T-- got home and took over.

After that, I tried to take a nap but couldn't get to sleep, so I played some Overlord. Best use of an afternoon I've made in some time. At 4:25 I remembered my 4:45 chiropractic appointment, so I headed down to the clinic. He took XRays and did a preliminary adjustment, and asked a lot of questions that all had the same answer: "Well, it comes and goes, but sometimes my lower back really hurts." He said it would take some time for the results to come back, and made an appointment for the same time next day to discuss my treatment.

I rushed home from there and picked up T-- to meet K-- and N-- for dinner at Arby's (we've seen a lot of them in the last seven days -- it's been nice). Dinner was okay, but not a patch on last week. We expected D--, but he never showed.

After that, K-- and N-- went home so K-- could play with his new HD TiVo. We went back to the house, and probably watched some Dead Zone. If not that, then I played some Overlord. Or, in all likelihood, both. I got to bed early, though, and we set up a fan in the room for some white noise. It did the trick. I slept like the dead.

Thursday, September 6th
Hmm. I already told you about my big bombshell schedule change for work. That was the big news for yesterday. T-- took AB to the doctor for some shots, and she said AB handled it like a little trooper. So that's good news. After work, D-- offered to bring us something for dinner, but he had to work out first so it was going to be late.

That worked out for me, anyway, because I had to visit the chiropractor and then run another errand before going home. Chiropractor said that I have two pinched nerves at the base of my spine, and rated my condition as serious transitioning toward severe, and it's going to take twenty-four office visits to fix it. Ugh. He showed me some XRays, but for all I could tell, they could have been stock photos of a spine. Anyway, he did an adjustment, I agreed to pay a whole lot of money, and then I ran by Blockbuster before heading home.

D-- showed up a little while later with boneless buffalo wings for all, and we ate and watched Simpsons and King of the Hill. After he left, T-- and I watched a Dead Zone, and then realized with surprise that the night was already over. I played half an hour of Overlord, then headed to bed.

And now it's today, and I've burned a significant portion of my afternoon, but I've still got an hour left until I get to go home. I'm going to see if I can find something useful to do. Everyone have a good weekend.