Today we had co-op until 1:00. Since my grandparents live 5 minutes away from the church we have Co-op at we decided to stop by. For the first 45 minutes or so, we talked with out grandparents, well everyone that is but Matthew. Matthew was too busy running away from Jules, my grandparents' foot long Dachshund. Jules had decided that Matthew was just the right height to lick in the face....Matthew did not like this! After a little bit, Matthew, Sam and I all went outside to see what Molly was up to. She had been looking at horses next door and we wanted to make sure that she had not jumped the electric fence and ridden bareback into the sunset...did I mention it was 2:00 in the afternoon? We arrived outside to find Molly was riding something... luckily, it was just a tandem bike. Yes, she was trying to ride a tandem (a bike that is for two people) by herself. I decided to fix her problem, and offered to ride on the back seat. In this case , the pictures really tell the story better. Note** The picture that follow are based on actual events. >)

Here we are just getting on the bicycle. Sam graciously uses his incredible strength to keep us steady.

And we are OFF!!! Matthew and Sam are NOT holding us up. They just wanted to be in on the fun so they ran along behind us and pushed. It did not make us go THAT much faster but they felt included.

Oh no!! Apparently we are stuck in a ditch (ohhh...thats why we weren't moving!) and only succeeded in getting out with Matthew and Sam's help. It was around this time that we discovered that both tires were flat. Hopefully, that is why we could never really get going.

Smile!! Matthew and I really like it when I ride a bike and he sits on the handlebars. We didn't try that with the tandem, but maybe one day we will...when the tires are full of air....

People being stupid news item of the week

Seems lots of people wanted to be stupid this week so here are several stories:

LAFAYETTE, Colo. (AP) — A little goofing off during a break from work led to a time-consuming, embarrassing ordeal for a Wal-Mart employee. Authorities said the man got his right index finger stuck in an oval-shaped hole of a cast-iron picnic table outside the store.

Co-workers tried in vain to help the man get free before help was summoned. A half-dozen firefighters and emergency workers responded. They freed the man by cutting a square out of the tabletop, then slicing through the metal around his finger.

Lafayette Fire Department Assistant Chief David Friedel said the unidentified man was OK, except for being upset, shaking and embarrassed about the ordeal. Friedel says the man told him it was an act of "stupidity." The man's name was not released.

ATHENS, Ohio (AP) — A woman accused of digging up her ex-boyfriend's grave and stealing his ashes pleaded not guilty Wednesday to felony vandalism, prosecutors said.

Martha LaFollete, 48, lived with Roger Barber in Roseville for five years until his death last November, said Athens County sheriff's Lt. Darrell Cogar. Police speculate she may have stolen Barber's ashes because she wasn't invited to his funeral. The grave was dug up in June, but the theft wasn't discovered until about two weeks later, authorities said. Police found Barber's ashes several weeks ago at a home belonging to one of LaFollete's relatives, Athens County prosecutor David Warren said.

"I have a category of crimes that I like to refer to as 'aggravated stupid,'" Warren said. "I have been doing this for almost 30 years now and I have never had anyone steal someone's ashes."
A trial was scheduled for January, Warren said. If convicted, LaFollete faces a maximum of one year in prison and a $2,500 fine, he said. Myca Haynes, who represented LaFollete at Wednesday's arraignment, declined to comment.

Barber's teenage daughter, Sierra Barber, said she's planning to rebury her father's remains at the family plot in New Marshfield Cemetery once LaFollete's trial is over. "I have to bury my dad and go through it, all over again," she said. "My dad's in an evidence locker. They say 'rest in peace' for a reason."

LANCASTER, Pa. (AP)— A purse-snatcher demanded $185,000 in ransom money for returning his victim's cell phone, but agreed to settle for $200. When the woman went to retrieve the phone, police accompanied her and made an arrest. Randy-Jay Adolphos Jones, 29, was arrested near the campus of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster early Sunday morning.

Jones, of nearby Columbia, allegedly grabbed the victim, a 29-year-old Philadelphia woman, and started fondling her as she was exiting her car to visit a friend. He pulled her purse off her shoulder and fled as she started to run away from him, police said. When police arrived, they told the woman to call her cell phone. Jones answered and demanded $185,000 for the return of the phone, Officer Jeff Gerhart said.

The victim stalled for time by asking questions as police listened in on the call and tried to pinpoint his location. He eventually lowered his demand to $200 and told her to meet him at a walkway near the campus, police said.

Jones was being held on $100,000 bail on robbery and indecent assault charges. It wasn't clear if he had an attorney. Under police questioning, Jones did not explain why he asked for so much money for the phone, Gerhart said.

I think the dude getting his finger stuck at Walmart is the best :p

Music while kitchen cleaning should not be too loud

My sister Molly always seems to be finding cds that we have not listened to for a very long time and sticking them in the cd player. Last night, I somehow ended up in the kitchen cleaning by myself. As I am thinking about music, in waltzes Molly, she puts cd in the cd player and Christmas music comes blaring out of the speakers!! Christmas is after all, only 66 days away! She actually had picked one of the better Christmas cds we have because it had one of Toby Mac's Christmas songs which of course made us need to turn the volume up to get the full effect of a Toby Mac song. :)

So I clean the kitchen with a little bit of dancing and Molly dances around (I am not sure why she was not helping me in the kitchen) as we listen to Christmas music pounding from the speakers, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" never sounded so good. This continues for a few minutes and then abruptly the music disappears! "Hey who is messing with the music" I say turning away from the sink only to see my mother walking back from the cd player. "William" she says, "I can hear this music throughout the entire house! If you would like to listen to music you will have to do it in your room." :( So I had to finish the rest of the kitchen in silence which I was rather bummed about since I love listening to music while cleaning the kitchen. Anyway, the moral of this story is this: listening to music while cleaning is a good thing, but don't get too carried away and to remember to have the volume at a reasonable level. ;)

Another Concert

On Tuesday my sisters told me that my posts of late have been boring, I say sisters because there are several. (No one probably will get that joke) Anyway, yesterday I sat staring at the computer screen and I never really had anything to post about. This seems to happen a lot on Wednesdays, it is like somehow the whole day my brain is just off somewhere. So sorry for no post yesterday. :p

On Monday I once again embarked on a journey to the state fair for a concert, this time though it was not a Christian concert. It was a country music concert. I will let those words sink in a bit..... :p Yes I listen to country music, I can almost hear the collective groans from readers as I type. I think I have said this before, but I love music and that love is not just restricted to one genre of music, I like to listen to everything under the sun, well to a point. Anyway on Monday some friends and I had tickets to see Josh Turner, a country musician.

While I do listen to country, there are only a few artists who I really would go out and buy a cd of. Josh Turner happens to be one of these, so I was rather looking forward to see how he would be live. The arena's lights went down and the band came out and started strumming, everyone around me seemed to to think this was the coolest thing in the world and were on their feet cheering. Then Josh Turner comes out and the sheer volume of the crowd was actually hard on the ears! I have been to country music concerts before so I pretty much expected this, but the whole thing suddenly just seemed wrong to me.

The Mercy Me concert on Friday was probably one of the best concerts I have been to, the whole atmosphere, the spirit of the crowd, was one of worship. Not for the band up on the stage but rather to the Lord. The Josh Turner concert on the other hand was such a stark contrast to that, that I actually considered leaving the concert. The actions of the crowd just really made me wonder about the people there. Throughout the whole concert, you had women screaming "Josh" or just screaming for no clear reason. Several rows in front of us there were these girls, I have no idea of their ages since all I saw was the back of their heads, but for almost the entire concert they were on their feet screaming and waving every time Josh turned their way.

I know this will sound harsh and I don't mean to judge people I don't even know, but one thought in my head during the concert was how disgusting those peoples actions were. I like Josh Turner's music and I clapped after some of his songs that I really like, but a lot of the crowd seemed to just worship him. After the song it was not like they were screaming/cheering for a well played song, rather they were screaming/cheering for the singer himself. The performance of the music did not matter, rather it was all about the artist.

I have been to country music concerts as well as other "secular" concerts and going in you know the crowd is going to be different but this is the first one where the crowd atmosphere was just sickening to me. About a month ago I wrote a post on music, secular and Christian, how we as Christians should listen to it and how the lines between each are blurred. I never published it, but writing it really has made me change how I view music and listen to it. So maybe the country and rock concerts I have been to in the past have always had this atmosphere and I just have not been as in tuned with the Holy Spirit and what is edifying as I am now, I don't know. One thing I am sure of is, I will not be going to a Josh Turner concert again.

To the readership of this blog...

The action of reading a blog and not commenting is commonly referred to as "lurking" Now I don't really mind people not commenting and lurking about our blog, Sarah reads many more blogs than I do and she hardly ever comments. :p I know for most people unless they disagree with you they really are not going to comment often, if at all. How, you may ask, do I know we have people lurking? Well I have this dandy little counter on the right side of the page that gives me all this great information about the readers of the blog. Besides the number of readers a day, it also can tell me how long people spend reading and where their location is! Not that I need reader's locations, it just gives it to me for some weird reason....

So I know people are actually spending their time reading this blog and I think that is great. It means I am not just posting thoughts into the black hole that is the internet, never to be seen again. Nobody except for a few people are really commenting but that is fine with me, if you want to be a lurker be the best one you can be. :p But, while I don't mind lurkers, comments are helpful, they help us bloggers know if people are agreeing or disagreeing and also gives us warm fuzzies.... So there is now an incentive (at least for a while) in actively commenting, whoever has the 500th comment gets a new compact car! Yay! :D :fun: So what are you waiting for? Comment!

To comment, you click that little link at the bottom of a post that says "comment" ;)


Ok, ok, no new car for the 500th comment, sorry! Rather you get a free CD of your choice, which I will ship to you if you don't happen to live near me :)

Life Tip # 113

When working on the faucet for a bathroom sink, make sure the water is turned off before you start taking apart the knobs. If for some reason the water is not turned off when you start taking apart the knobs, quickly turn off the water and immediately use a towel to fix any spilled water. Watching the water drip all over the underneath of a bathroom sink can be hypnotizing but resist the urge to watch it! Also make sure you have the correct pieces before you start gluing parts together. If you do happen to glue parts together before it is time, using a flat head screwdriver is not a recommended tool to try to get them back apart! If you must use a flat head screwdriver to break apart two prematurely glued together pieces, breaking a $23.00 piece of plastic that goes inside an on/off knob is not a good idea.

Life Tip #61

While in a moving vehicle, taking off or putting on clothes is not a recommended activity. If you must take off or put on clothes while in a moving vehicle, it is recommended that you do so in a larger vehicle, aka a van or bus. (A four door mid-sized car is NOT a larger vehicle, hence the name mid-sized car!) If you absolutely MUST take off or put on some article of clothing while in a moving vehicle, in no way should you be operating said vehicle!!!!

Women drivers out to kill me - Episode 2

Here is the next episode on women drivers trying to kill me. Episode 1 can be read here.

Episode 2 - Crooked back up Lady

This episode is not so much about a woman driver trying to kill me so much as a woman driver trying to kill my poor truck. One day when I was still in school I had to mail a package, so I drove up to the post office. All the parking spaces were full, except one that was next to someone who had parked their van very crooked and over the line. Having nowhere else to park, I pulled my truck in. I was in the post office paying for my postage when somebody ran in and said "whoever owns this red truck better get out here" Being the owner of the red truck I ran out to see what the commotion was. Low and behold the lady driving the crooked parked van had just backed straight out, never looking to see if she might hit my truck. Since she had parked at an angle, when she backed straight out she backed right into the side of my truck!

Everyone knows Fords are built tough, they like to say it in all their truck ads and I can honestly say they are not lying. Even though the lady backed into my truck, figuring that if she could not get me, she might as well get my truck, there was no damage at all to my truck's side Unfortunately her van was not built "Ford tough" and she dented her driver side bumper as well as breaking her driver side tail light. At least she did not damage my truck, but then they are:

State Fair

Yesterday Sarah and I went to the State Fair. Rather than go into a lengthy post on everything we did, here are some pictures. :)

This being the south, you of course have to have tobacco bundling contests:

This old lady's group was fast, they did the whole thing in 1:09!

Here we have this strange dude who kept popping up wherever music was playing and doing interpretive dance:

Here is me trying to pitch a baseball...lets just say I am not going to have a "rookie" experience, the best I could do was a measly 55mph! :frown:

This is our good ol' buddy and pal Greg the weather man:
Here is another picture of Greg hanging out with some funny animal thing. Greg had to change his clothes because he got pie all over them in the pie eating contest.
Racing Pigs:
Racing Ducks!
So those are the highlights from the fair...Some other things to note: The weather was GREAT!!!!!!!! Did not get above 70 the whole day! :D We spent way too much on over priced fair food, the military really loves giving out tee-shirts, the animals were a smelly as ever and oh yeah we went to a concert in the evening.......

Concert at the state fair......

Ah yes, the best part of the fair yesterday and the main reason for our going....Mercy Me had a concert and we had second row seats!!

Sarah showing where our seats were.
Unknown to us, it was actually not just Mercy Me. First up was Monk and Neagle and then Aaron Shust:

Finally after a 15 minute intermission Mercy Me:

This picture was posted just because I thought it was funny how they were singing: :p

Bring the Rain!

So afterwards they had a meet 'n greet and we of course stood in line for that...Here is Sarah with them. Unfortunately because of the way things were set up we could not get behind them for a picture or hold up the line so this was the best picture, still I got to talk to them all which is all I really cared about...oh and check out Bart Millard's smile! :p

One last fair picture:

A little about the concert....First off, except for maybe Toby Mac/Newsboys, Mercy Me is the one Christian music group that, at least for me, has consistently put out albums that have really spoken to me and I have enjoyed. That is one reason we got tickets on the second row, I got them months in advance the day they came out because I wanted to have good seats. I have also found that for concerts at the fair when you sit so close to the stage it is actually not as hard on the ears because of the way the speakers are set up... While it is loud, as in your shirt is moving from the air loud; as in it is hard to hold a camera steady loud. You don't really hear the music from the speakers so much as you feel it. :p

Anyway the concert was terrific! For some concerts the group might play a song that might not be your favorite and leave out one you really love. Mercy Me has so many great songs they obviously can't sing them all but they did a very good job covering a range of their stuff in the amount of time they had.

The crowd was pretty amazing as well. From the very first song you could hear everyone singing along with the band, it actually seemed to surprise Bart Millard, the lead singer, at just how loud we were. On the third song, I think it was "Word of God Speak" he started singing the chorus and we were so loud he just stopped and held out the microphone to the crowd and let us have it. A few songs later he switched over to a mixture of hymns a cappella and it honestly was hard to tell if he was singing or not. Everyone was together in singing and there actually was some audible harmonizing going on! It made me miss being in a large church a little bit....No music, just 8,000 or so people singing their hearts out to the Lord. It was incredible.... :)

One funny thing, about 20 minute in, there was this loud engine revving type noise for about 15 seconds that was coming from the tractor pull that was about 300 yards away. This continued every 6-8 minutes for the rest of the concert. After about probably the 6th time this happened, Bart Millard, asked the crowd what on earth that crazy loud noise was that kept occurring. As one voice everyone yelled back at him "IT'S A TRACTOR!" he looked at the crowd and laughed, and said "Of course! It is a tractor, I forgot I am in the south" :D Anyway, that about sums up the concert, I guess you have probably figured out I thought it was wonderful.

People being stupid news item of the week

Thieves take more than they can carry

Two men told a reporter that they regretted stealing 5,647 coins from their restaurant because the loot was too heavy and they couldn't carry it at all, a Qingdao newspaper reported today.

Local residents felt suspicious when they saw the duo, both of whom are in their twenties, exhausted and sweating as they carried a 50-centimeter-long bag (20inchs) at a slow pace at the Qiandao Railway Station, so they called police, the report said. Police were curious about the jingling sound coming from the bag and ordered the duo to open it. The bag was filled with one yuan coins, the report said.

The two young men were migrant workers employed at a restaurant in Qingdao, Shandong Province. They allegedly decided to steal the coins when they saw their boss put 20,000 yuan worth of coins in a box, the report said. They planned to use the money to start their own businesses in south China, the report said.

They prepared two bags to collect the coins, but they each weighed 25 kilograms when filled, which were too heavy for them to carry. "The bags were too hefty to lift them up, even the belts were snapped. We could not think of any better ideas, so we took only some of the coins," Gao told the newspaper. "If we had to know how heavy it was, we would not consider doing it," one of the suspects said.

Point one, if you are going to rob something, don't go for the coins!! Cash is the way to go...If you must steal the coins, it might be a good idea to be in shape so you can actually carry them!!! 25kg is only about 60lbs...could neither of these guys carry a 60lb bag? :p

About my apartment....

In the comments of my last post about my magnificent new door, Sleepy Joy brought up an interesting question: "Are you going to move into your apartment now?" This is actually a topic I was going to post about but it has been in the "rough draft" stage and I have not had the time to finalize it. Since she did raise the question and a simple "yes" or "no" would need an explanation here it is:

No, I am not moving into my apartment now, or in all likelihood ever. I am going to sell it. I have seriously thought about living in it, it is in an excellent location and is only 5 minutes away from work. Gone would be the 2+ hours of driving I currently do everyday, and I would have practically 1,100sqft all to myself. Sure I would have a monthly power/water/phone bill to keep track of, but at least half that cost would be covered by me not needing hardly any gas for my car. So why don't I want to move into it? The answer is actually pretty simple, I love my family! :)

That is a pretty blanket statement, but probably the thing I would miss the most would be the conversation. That is easy to fix, just get room mates for your apartment you might say. Yes, I could do that, but it really would not be the same. The past probably year and a half, I have really enjoyed being at home and having our "after 10 discussions" with my family especially Sarah. I have jokingly told her there is no way she is getting married before me because I would lose a buffer (inside joke) and I also would have no one to act crazy with or sing with when I am doing the dishes.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problems moving out and living on my own. When I am married I will have no issue moving to Timbuktu or wherever else my wife and I feel God wants us to live. Until that happens though, I am content to live at home and spend time with my family. Besides, without me their life would be pretty dull and they would probably have to get rid of the computers since they most likely would start having issues as soon as I moved out!

A magnificent door!

Last week I bought a door! :D That's great, you might say, so what? Why are you posting about getting a door? Well besides the fact that I could not think of anything else to post, I am also pretty pumped about my door! To explain why I am so pumped up about a door requires some background:

I own a 1049sqft apartment. It has been completely remodeled inside, and when I say completely, I mean the only thing left from it's previous state are a few of the studs...Everything else was torn out. The reason everything got torn out had something to do with the floor to ceiling mold that was everywhere when I purchased it out of foreclosure. The first time I walked in I was actually a little depressed. Mold is not something you want to mess around with and my apartment seemed to have every type of mold there is growing everywhere. Eventually the apartment was gutted down to the cement floor, ( I am on the bottom floor) and the previously mentioned studs. Then it was time to rebuild the interior.

Because everything had to be replaced the remodeling took a little longer and cost much more than I had first thought it would. A brand new kitchen had to be built, shelves, counter tops, appliances and lots of other things add up over time. Everything finally was almost done except my door needed a new lock. On the door was this metal plate thing, that looked like it was there to reinforce the door lock portion of the door. Well that is what it looked like, it actually was the only thing holding the door together at the lock!!! Off comes the metal plate and the handle and lock pretty much fall out of the door... It seemed a new door was needed.

This did not make me happy! Doors really are not that expensive, the price for a good exterior door is just a drop in a bucket compared to what I have already spent. Still, I really did not want to spend at least another $150 or so just for a door!! I decided rather than buy a new door, I would check on craigslist to see if maybe a used door could be had for a good price... There were a few, but they were left hand doors and I needed a right.

The next morning resigning myself to the fact that I would have to buy a new door, I checked craigslist again and low and behold posted less than an hour before, was a listing for a right hand exterior door with a peep-hole, everything I was looking for!!! I immediately contacted the person and told her I would be there that afternoon with cash for the door. So my apartment now has a wonderful almost new door! :)

It is actually hard to express how thrilled I am over the door. I know this is going to sound crazy, but when I put the door in the back of the trunk to bring it to the apartment, I had this sense of, I don't know any other way to describe it other than, it was just complete and utter joy. :D I had lost all hope in getting a cheap door and then out of the blue a door practically drops out of heaven for me! Driving to the apartment, I would look in the rear mirror and see it in the bed of the truck and I just could not help but smile. Well, that is the story of my magnificent door, even now, days later, every time I think about it I am just amazed that I got it.

The weather!!

As I type this the weather is as follows:

92°F
Mostly Cloudy
Wind: S at 6 mph
Humidity: 38%

A little on the warm side but nothing you would not expect from a hot, muggy, summer day in the south.....But wait a just cotton pickin minute, summer is supposed to be long gone, we are a few days into the SECOND WEEK of October!!!!! Why on earth is it 90+ degrees outside???? We currently are the warmest place in the USA, warmer than Florida, warmer than Texas, California is down right chilly compared to us:

There is something rather off about having temperatures 20+ degrees higher than usual for this time of year.....Where has our cold weather gone??? :(

WOO HOO

William and I get to go to the Denver and the mile high orchestra concert!!!!! We thought it was the same day as my orchestra concert in December but it isn't !!!! Denver and the Mile High Orchestra is a Christian big band group that we heard when we went to Kingdom bound in August.
I am sooo excite. Of course we still have to work out the logistics because the concert is in NY. But we have plenty time for that. Can you tell I'm a sanguine ? ok you all have heard enough from me tonight...hopefully tomorrow I will write about my Sunday concert. Yes, I had 2 concerts in two days. It was exhausting! So, stay tuned. :)

Explanation Of the Crazy William Photos

I kept meaning to get on all week and post about the crazy photos of William and his sleeping bag. What happened was this: after dinner that night, William came up to me and said " Sarah, I want to show you something." Since I am naturally inquisitive, I immediately follow William up to his room...to find...William holding his camera. Since so many people had commented and said "I can't tell how big the sleeping bag is...William decided to remedy that by taking pictures of himself inside said sleeping bag. So I take a few pictures for the blog. Then I decided to have some fun. I started snapping away like the paparazzi. Those pictures are the result...(William finally got tired of me having fun and decided to end it. So, the moral of the story is: if you give Sarah a camera, she might use it to take funny/embarrassing/strange pictures of you... she could also take a nice picture but you never know what you will get. The thing to do, is to make sure you look at every picture she takes and then when she is not looking, you take her camera and delete all the ones you hate. hmm I just realized that I was referring to myself in the third person. I think I will end this post before I say anything else that I will regret tomorrow.
~Adios~
~La Sarita~

Concert Season Starts!!

First of all, I have to say Happy Birthday Abigail and many happy returns! I feel a special kinship with Abigail because her first name is my middle name.

Now what you have all been waiting for: a long and lengthy description of my weekend.
Saturday: DUSS Concert Day: Three dress rehearsals and three concerts!
I had to get up at 6:00 so I would be ready to leave at 7:15.
(There are three different orchestras and two beginner groups. The beginner groups and Intermediate 1 have their concert in the afternoon, while Intermediate 2 and the advanced orchestra have their concerts on Saturday night. Molly plays the cello and Sam plays the viola in intermediate 1. I play the violin in all three of the orchestra, and Matthew plays in beginner 2. Sam and Annabeth are in the first violin section of intermediate 2 and I am in the first violin section of the advanced orchestra. Hmmm I wonder if anyone will be able to remember all that?
I had been under the impression that we would come home after the afternoon concert, but my parents decided it would be less stressful to just stay in town. This meant that I had to take everything I would need all day!! Lets just say my truck was pretty loaded. Anyhoo, Molly, Sam and I got to the rehearsal hall on time. As soon as I walked into the building, I knew something was wrong.... it was HOT! At 8:00 in the morning...it was really hot.... the air condition was completely off and no one knew how to turn it back on. Now in some parts of the country, the temperature feels like fall. This is not the case in NC.... we are still having 80-85 degree weather with lots of humidity. At first it wasn't too bad, but about halfway through the dress rehearsal, I felt like I was going to pass out!! My legs felt weird, my stomach hurt, I was a little dizzy, I did not want to be there anymore. ( I think I was experiencing heat stroke) But I stayed and finished the rehearsal. As soon as the rehearsal ended, I started feeling better.
Thankfully, by the time the advanced orchestra got on the stage some one had figured out how to turn on the air conditioning. :)
So, I got through all three dress rehearsal and then it was time for the afternoon concert. Here are some pictures of the Afternoon Concert

You might have to click on the pictures for the full view to read the names....

The Beginner 2 Group Annabeth helps with this group

Intermediate 1 cello section

More of the Cello section and you can kinda see Sam in the viola section

After the concert my family had few hours to just lay around and do nothing. We all needed that break especially my dad. He had spent week in Canada on a job and drove 15 hours straight to be with us on Saturday. So we hung out at the hall, had dinner and then there was just enough time to get dressed for the night concert. The concert went smashing!
I realize this is a long post and I can just see your eyes glassing over and you saying "stop! stop! too many detail ahhhhhhh. William told me to tell every little thing that happened this weekend. I 'm just following directions. :) Here are a few pictures from the nighttime concert. For some reason, William did not get any pictures of my orchestra playing. Because he was listening to the music and he is not very good at multitasking. :)

Intermediate 2 tuning

In the middle of a song...I have no idea which one.
You can see three of us in this very nice picture... thanks William!

There is a story I need to tell...wait make that two,
but I thought that you should have time to digest this extremely long post :) btw...I have no idea why that captions will not stay centered unto the photos. But it seems William has fixed that!

~Sarah~

"in Your sea of forgetfulness"

In the absence of Sarah's post about our weekend, I might as well post something I was thinking about....Sometimes we tend to listen to music without really hearing the lyrics, there is a great beat or rhythm and we just get carried away by that and forget to hear what the song is actually saying. I know I have done that, which is why recently when I am listening to music I have really tried to listen to the lyrics and see just what the singer is saying. I was listening to the radio a few days ago and "East To West" by Casting Crowns came on. I really like Casting Crowns and I have heard this song I don't know how many times since it came out but for some reason, in the first lines of the song I heard something that got me thinking...

Here I am Lord,
and I'm drowning
in Your sea of forgetfulness

"in Your sea of forgetfulness" At first when I heard that I was like, what? The Lord does not forget those who call on His name, how can the singer be drowning in a "sea of forgetfulness"? But then I started thinking about it and I realized the song is not meant to say the Lord has forgotten about this guy. I think it is more to say he has been forgiven of his sins, the sins themselves have been cast into the "sea of forgetfulness". And yet the singer still feels like he is chained to them, therefore being with his sins in that "forgetfulness" he feels like he is drowning in his sins.....

Thinking along those lines, I thought how true that song really is! When we are forgiven our sins are thrown into that "sea of forgetfulness" they are gone, God has forgiven them and they are forgotten. Sometimes though we don't forget about them, we go fishing in that "forgetfulness sea" and fish them back up. That is what I feel Casting Crowns is saying with the song, we should not be dwelling on past sins, drowning in that "sea of forgetfulness" Rather, we should remember that what God has forgiven should not remain a burden, we should forget the things which are in the past and be pressing forward to those things which are ahead. Because our sins truly are as far as the east is from the west....

Our weekend!

This past weekend was the start of.........Wait, I was about to make a long post detailing our weekend but it seems Sarah would like to make the post regarding our weekend. So hopefully she will get to it and entertain you readers with mesmerizing stories of bravery and excitement! Stay tuned.....

Notice to readers

The blog will not be updated for a few days, we have a pretty hectic weekend coming up and I doubt I will even be able to get on the computer until Sunday afternoon or evening. Everyone have a good weekend! :D

People being stupid news item of the week

Toilet Paper Thief on the Loose

FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — Someone is either too cheap to buy his own toilet paper or planning a big prank.

Fond du Lac County Executive Allen Buechel said someone has been repeatedly stealing toilet paper from the men's public bathrooms at the Fond du Lac City County Government Center since June.

Buechel suspects the person comes in once or twice a week around midday and gets about six rolls a week from dispensers. Some rolls weren't even full, he said.

The thefts haven't been a big loss.

"We don't buy the best toilet paper," Buechel said.

He expects the thief to get caught. "Someone is going to walk in on him when he's doing it and we'll catch him," he said.

Courthouse officials are on the lookout for suspicious activity.

County sheriff Capt. Dean Will didn't return a call for comment Friday.

So the courthouse officials have been on the lookout for suspicious activity since June and yet they still have not caught this guy??!!!! That does not give you very much faith in those officials observation skills. :p

Equivocation!

Every Wednesday night I take Sarah down to NC State for orchestra practice. Yesterday while riding around we created funny informal fallacies using syllogism :p (Just a word of warning these get a tad crazy!)

mine:
Sarah hates mayonnaise,
Mayonnaise is a good thing,
Sarah hates good things!

Will loves loud music,
Loud music makes you go deaf,
Will loves going deaf!

Only bats come out at night,
The moon comes out at night,
The moon is a bat!

Olivia loves adventures,
Adventures are dangerous,
Olivia loves danger!

All pirates have beards,
Abe Lincoln had a beard,
Abe Lincoln was a pirate!

Beauty is subjective,
Subjective is an adjective,
Beauty is an adjective!

Sarah's:
William loves cold weather,
cold weather is the bomb,
William loves the bomb.

People who comment are great!
Great people are geniuses,
People who comment are geniuses!

Cows eat grass,
our dogs eat grass.
Our dogs are cows!

Rebekah does not like opera,
Opera is beautiful,
Rebekah does not like beautiful things!

Everything in the ocean is fun to play with,
Jelly fish are in the ocean,
Jelly fish are fun to play with.

In the Shadow of the Moon

"If I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold."

Last night I fortunate enough to catch a screening of "In the Shadow of the Moon". A tremendous documentary about the United States' Apollo missions and the exploration of the moon.

Lately it seems most of the news that comes out of NASA is negative in terms of the space program. "In the Shadow of the Moon" takes you back to a time in our history when we as a nation, to quote Buzz Aldrin, "Did bold things" Director David Sington, a veteran of the space-faring PBS series "Nova," does a brilliant job conveying to the viewer what it it felt like to be participant in the launches and the excitement around the world from those who watched it.

This is feeling is portrayed through some excellent interviews with the crew members of every Apollo mission that flew to the moon. (minus Neil Armstrong) These men, the only living people to have actually seen our earth from the moon, speak of their experiences with a down-to-earth eloquence and candor, their words adding considerable feeling to the images on the screen. There is one scene where Jim Lovell talks about reading from Genesis while orbiting the Moon, and as he reads the moon pans by, to say the least it is inspiring!

While it does not focus on the subject, there are several scenes with the astronauts where they mention that being in space and looking back at the earth, gave them a feeling of awe and the knowledge that our universe was created, it did not just happen. One of the astronauts, I believe it was David Scott even says something in the context of "While I was on the moon for three days, I ending gaining a lifetime with God"

Besides the interviews, the actual footage in the film is visually stunning. The archival material from original NASA film has been re-mastered and except for the fact that it is 4:3 is simply gorgeous. The result of this staggering footage combined with the insightful commentary from the astronauts result in an intimate epic that vividly communicates the daring, the danger, the pride, and the promise of this extraordinary era in history when the whole world literally looked up at America. "In the Shadow of the Moon" is the best documentary to come out in the long time and is definitely a film to watch. :)

Requested Sleeping Bag pictures

So here is the sleeping bag..

These next pictures are a tad violent, young children should cover their eyes.

You might be wondering why normally calm William was jumping out of the sleeping bag and running at the picture taker....I leave that to Sarah to explain :p

A sleeping bag

I am thrifty, I have touched on this subject in a previous post LINK so I will just leave it at that. Needless to say, I do not pay retail for anything! I can't even remember the last time I bought something and paid the MSRP. Anyway there is this great outdoors store called REI, it is a national chain so you might have been to one of their stores. If you have been to their stores you probably know what I am talking about when I say REI stands for Ridiculously Expensive Items. They have a lot of great cool stuff but their prices are mainly on the high end. (Usually) ;)

Every year around this time they start discounting their 2006 products they still have to make way for 2008 stuff. Normally their prices are so high to begin with that the discounts while nice, are still not enough to temp a savvy buyer like myself. Except when they have their garage sales. These "garage sales" usually include all their clearance items as well as open box stuff and the like, all with an extra 50% off their already marked down prices! :D

Recently they had one of their sales and unfortunately I succumbed to the pressure and spent about $48 dollars. It was more than I currently would have liked to spend on non-essential items but I did not feel too bad since if everything had not been on sale I would have had to spend about $260ish to get the same stuff...

The main thing I purchased was a sleeping bag, but not just any sleeping bag, a longer than normal sleeping bag! This past June I had the opportunity to sleep in one of the current sleeping bags that we own. It was not fun! It seems our current sleeping bags are made for midgets! I decided right then I would keep an eye out for a sleeping bag that can fit a slightly taller person and fortunately REI had one on sale. A very bad picture of my sleeping bag:

Muhahaha! :fun:

As you might have noticed I decided to use my hot layout I made a while back. I have also made it so you see smiles for the comments :D It is not the ideal comment system I would like, but it seems it is the best I can do with Blogger. :frown: Still, it is better than nothing :) For those of you who saw a preview of the layout last week and did not like it, you are just going have to deal because I :wub: it!

The posts that are never published....

If you have read this blog for any amount of time, you probably have noticed the ratio of humorous to serious posts is a tad skewed to the humorous. Some of that comes from me finding humor in almost every aspect of life....Take Sleepy Rufus for example, that post came from me oversleeping. There is absolutely nothing interesting or worth posting about me oversleeping, unless of course I tell about my alter ego which was the cause of my oversleeping in the first place. :D

I do of course, have serious posts, Erroneously for example, but these posts don't get published most of the time. What has happened to my blog is I have started using it as an online journal where I just type whatever happens to be on my mind. If I feel like publishing it I will, 90% of the time. That other 10% usually involves thoughts I have on things like courtship, secular music and just our society as a whole. Because of their nature most of these posts are way too long to publish, besides the fact that all of them are rather rough drafts of their topics. I was looking over the posts from this month as I was backing them up and I just felt like posting that I am not as bad a nut case as some of these posts might lead you to believe. :)

Woman drivers are out to kill me!

If anyone has actually read my profile, which I doubt, they will see that I said woman drivers are out to kill me. This is not an exaggeration, this is a honest, kid you not, fact! One that is a bit baffling to me since I think I am a nice enough guy. I can't think of a reason why women in cars want to see me in a body bag so badly....I am sure women will read this and think to themselves, under what authority does this William character say women drivers are out to kill him?? In answer to that dear readers, I will present the evidence in this and future posts:

Episode 1, The fail to check her side mirror woman.

It is a bright cheery day, the weather is a nice balmy 75 or so. I am driving my F-150, windows down as usual, singing along with my music that is filling my ears with a wonderful melody. I slowly cruise down the road about to turn and merge on the interstate. To steal a few lines from the Newsboys, "Wherever I go, the bluebirds sing, the grass gets green, the bees behave and in the treetops, squirrels smile and wave" everything is right with the world.

I get on the interstate, merge to the far left hand lane and start zipping along around 80mph...Five minute later I get off the interstate. At the bottom of the exit ramp is a red light and as I head towards said light I get in the second turning lane because there is no one in it. Let me stop here and say the exit ramp is two lanes, both of which turn right onto four southbound lanes of a eight lane boulevard. Since the offramp is 2 lanes and you are turning onto 4, it is logical to assume the first exit turning lane takes the first 2 lanes and the second exit turning lane takes the last 2 lanes. Makes sense? Here is a picture:


Anyway as I near the light in the second turning lane, the light turns green and I accelerate down the rest of the ramp and into my turn right. I successfully arrive in my lane (lane # 3 in the picture) and out of the corner of my eye I notice a minivan in my right hand side mirror turning onto the boulevard as well. The mini-van is turning from the first turning lane, meaning it needs to turn into lanes # 1 and 2 in the picture. Guess what the lady in the mini-van wants to do? She wants to get to lane #4 the farthest away from where she is turning. The only way to get there is of course go across lanes 1,2,3 and right in her path is me and my truck.

So mini-van lady starts drifting across the lanes heading right for my passenger side door. I watch her come thinking she will slow down, but she just keeps on coming. When she is about 5 feet away I realize that she has no intention of slowing down and intends to just magically drift through my car. It was at this moment that the horn god decided to erupt with the noise of a thousand trumpets. Mini-van lady was awakened from her intent to kill me and decided she might be getting too close. So what does she do? She jerks the mini-van back and almost crashes into someone else!!! Fortunately no one was hurt! Such is my life avoiding women drivers out to kill me.

People being stupid news item of the week

Escaped convict found at police party

An escaped convict has been recaptured in Taiwan - at a barbecue party organized at the local police station. Police in Xinzhu city invited residents to celebrate the Moon Festival with them.

But officers could not believe their eyes when they saw an escaped drug dealer called Chen, who had just been listed as one of the city's most wanted criminals, at the party.

Police officer Cai Zhengtong, who was in charge of the barbecue, said: "I saw a man dressed in an eye-catching yellow windbreaker enter the place and sit in the corner.

"He was enjoying the barbecue with the others. I really couldn't believe my eyes, since the man was just the criminal we were seeking."

Police at the party quickly arrested Chen. He told officers he thought it would have been the last place police would have thought of looking for him.

It seems Chen, might have been been smoking some of those drugs he was dealing.

Life Tip #196

When cutting one's own hair, it is wise to do so facing a mirror. Using the reflective surface of an oven is not a recommended replacement for an actual mirror.

A completely random post

I don't really have much to post about today, I have been slightly busy and nothing much interesting has happened to me lately, so I just am going to post some random things that I have thought about or have happened so far this week.

I think I might be posting too much on here! :p September still has a few days left and for the month we already have 40 some posts!

A few days ago as I was driving around town, I rolled down my windows, cranked up the volume and played the last two movements of Beethoven's 9th while I ate turkey sandwiches. During this experience I had an epiphany, music blaring + wind in your face + turkey = :D

I really like carrots, on Monday I ate an entire bag of them.

This morning I was sitting in my car waiting for the lab to open so I could drop some film off for my dad. There was this guy blowing leaves around the parking lot and he was coming my direction. He blew all the leaves past my car and then for some strange reason started blowing my car...I have no idea why, he just started blowing my hood and left side.... I almost opened my door to ask what on earth he was doing but he was Hispanic and all I can seem to say in spanish is ask for the bathroom and to say I don't understand.

I have not been home very much this week, since Monday through today (Thursday) I have only been home for an average of 6 and a half hours a day and most of that time I have been sleeping.

Real men eat onions raw, like apples.

I drove over a local lake the other day and saw some lucky people tubing, it made me think of some friends we have that I wished we lived closer to.

Wit is nothing more than an incisive observation, humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing

MEMO to Older men with ponytails: Cut that thing off! You do not look "cool", "hip" or "younger" with a ponytail, you look ridiculous! If you happen to also have a crazy Hawaiian shirt on....just add more points to the ridiculous scale.

Common sense is an uncommon virtue

I just realized the pair of dockers I am currently wearing have a hole in them!!!

Credit card offers! :x

It seems every credit card company in America wants to give me a credit card! This is not unusual, for the past 2-3 years I have gotten between 1-6 offers a month. I don't even look at them, I just tear them up and forget about them.. For some reason, over the last several months the number of offers I have been receiving has ballooned to 3-7 a week! Yesterday I got home and was looking through the mail and I actually had three!! It is crazy, these companies are just spamming me with a never ending stream of offers. I guess they figure I am worth the endless paper and stamps they are wasting, but I have decided to put a stop to it.

There is this consumer advice guy named Clark Howard who has a radio show that I listen to. (Sarah hates him for some reason, but I love listening since he tells people about scams and such.) Anyway he was talking about credit cards and how you can actually get off their mailing list! So no longer shall the credit card companies destroy forests so they can send me their spam, I have removed myself from their list! If anyone else would like to do this as well the number to call is 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688)

In case a certain someone was wondering.....

I know... two post the same day... wait the same hour..

Why I like my name:Sarah
Reason 1. It is popular
but not so popular that tons of people have the same name.
Reason 2. It is easy to spell, well... most of the time.
Reason 3. It has a great meaning.
Reason 4. ummm I don't have anymore reasons. (I just can't think of any more right now)

But this post was supposed to be about William's name.
So here are some (boring) facts about his name.

1.)There are 3,722,557 people in the U.S. with the first name William.
(ok ok that's a lot)

2.)Statistically the 6th most popular first name.
(Yes, that is more popular than my name)

3.)99.72 percent of people with the first name William are male.
(Again...duh!)

4.)Names similar to William:
Bill
Billie
Billy
Wiley
Will
Willie
Willis
Willy
(They kinda all look the same)

Here you go... This how many people in the USA have the same name as William...



But although there are a lot of Williams in the world,
none can be as considerate and thoughtful as MY brother.
Case in point... today when I called him to ask him to pick up my library books, he said"I am just on my way to pick them up."
He didn't even know that my requested books had come in! :)
See what a great brother I have! And then he takes me to orchestra every Wednesday night, so I won't have to walk by myself on a college campus in the dark. As you can see, right now I think my brother is the greatest...its a good thing this is written down.. that way the next time I can't stand him because of his crazy opinions or something, I can go back and read this. :)

I like my name... Apparently other people do too!

I know you are all waiting to hear why other people
(people that I don't even know) think my name is great. Well, you are just going to have to wait a little bit while I tell you some exciting facts about my name. First if you will... my name is spelled S.A.R.A.H..please notice the H. at the end. If you spell my name S.A.R.A it is kinda like spelling Anne with out the E. If you forget and leave out the H, I will forgive you....the first time. :)

1.) There are 769,349 people in the U.S. with the first name Sarah.
(That's a lot!!)

2.) Statistically the 58th most popular first name.
(That's in the top fifty!! er... wait...never mind)

3.)More than 99.9 percent of people with the first name Sarah are female.
(Well..not to be mean but ..duh)

4.)Names similar to Sarah:
Sadie
Salley
Sallie
Sally
Sara

Three smells.....

There are three things that smell so bad you want to gag,
yea, four things which make your nostrils flail in pain.

A rotting cantaloupe that has sat in the sun,
when fresh it has a wonderful aroma,
but one sniff after it has gone bad and you'll be in a coma!

A dead skunk that lies in the road,
bloated in the sun. the smell can erode,
it's defensive odor is meant to protect,
but once dead my nose it infects!

Mildew, such a small sounding thing
but when it is on clothing, what a smell it doth it bring,
musty and funky the smell makes you wheeze,
as it invades the nasal cavities!

Humans perspire when we get hot,
a sweet smelling scent it is not,
without deodorant, I fear gas masks would be our attire,
to help keep the smell absent or else we'd expire.

New Profile pictures

So I was playing around with some pictures Sarah and I had done and decided to make me look like I was from a comic book. Sarah liked mine so much she decided I should do one of her and we should use them as our profile pictures so here they are:

Oh yeah what they look like together:

Layout under construction

This post has been updated*

So it seems my dear sister did not like my cool and amazing new blog layout :(...So we are back to something a little calmer but still different...If you did not catch the wickedly awesome new layout, here is a screenshot:

At least I have been able to keep my smiles for the posts :D B) I am still working on getting them to work in comments though

The winds of change cometh!

I have been working on a new layout and colors for the blog as well as some new features, hopefully I will be able to get everything up today. :D

Cake !!!!!!!

Last Friday was my granddad's 85th Birthday. I decided to make him a four layer cake. I have been wanting to make this particular cake for months! I turned out pretty good. Unfortunately, I only got a sliver of a piece, due to me having a cough for three, going on four weeks. Luckily, for me, we do have some left-overs in the freezer.
(In case anyone wanted to know, my cough is almost gone now, but more on that later)

The cake before I added the mini chocolate chips.
Yes, the cake is in my refrigerator. Now you know what the second shelf looks like. :)

The cake right before we cut it. By the way mini chocolate chips are really hard to put on a cake
when it has a whipped cream frosting that gets softer the longer it sits out on the counter.

Top of the cake, and I did not take this picture... if I had the picture would have been centered.

Really scary cat..... it doesn't really have anything to do with my cake. No, the cat did not get a piece of the cake.

People being stupid news item of the week

Man Tows Vessel With Inflatable Boat

NEW YORK (AP) — A man who tried to tow his 35-foot fishing vessel to a marina by paddling in a 9-foot inflatable boat was fished out of a Long Island canal by Coast Guard officials Wednesday.

"This is one of the most unsafe things I may have ever seen a boater do," said U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Steven Koch.

Louis Pasquale, 35, of Seaford, N.Y., was attempting to tow his fishing vessel Barbara Ann from the North Channel near Bay Shore about 20 miles to Freeport. He was not injured, but not wearing a life jacket, the Coast Guard said.

Pasquale reportedly started towing the Barbara Ann at 5:30 a.m from the East Islip Marina, and had managed to move it about 100 yards in three hours when both the Coast Guard and Islip Harbor Police stopped him.

A rescue boat crew towed the vessel back to the East Islip Marina, and ordered Pasquale to anchor, the Coast Guard said. He was issued a state summons and a Town of Islip summons for unsafe operation and hazard to navigation.

So either he did not have a radio or cell phone in his boat, or he just did not think to use them. Maybe he figured he did not need them since he was moving at a pretty fast clip, 100ft an hour! This is one news story I really wish had pictures. :D

First Leaf of Fall

I walked out to my car in the morning and low a behold a solitary leaf was sitting on my windshield. Struck by inspiration, I decided to take a picture and write something awesome about the first leaf of fall, the changing seasons and the impending colder weather........ So I uploaded the picture, and sat down to type! Unfortunately, I guess the inspiration strike was a weak one, because I could not really think of anything to say about the changing seasons that was awe-inspiring :( but I did still have the picture and since a picture is worth a thousand words I might as well share it:

Changing colors,
Falling leaves,
Autumn begins!

Love, Laugh, .......

What is the first word that comes to mind after reading those two?

I was walking through K-Mart yesterday (I hate K-Mart, but that story is for another time) and as I went by the picture frame section I noticed they had these black wooden words you could buy. I glanced at them out of the corner of my eye and saw one was Love and the other one was Laugh...Right after I noticed them, out of the blue a word popped into my head. For some reason it made me stop, I turned around and went back to the wooden words and sure enough right there on the top shelf was the word that had popped into my head....it was almost like something from the Twilight Zone, but then I figured I must have heard it somewhere and I decided to see what other people's first though is....So what is the first word that comes to your mind after reading Love, Laugh, .....?

A rather large remote

Our family has this thing about losing remotes....We are constantly losing the TV remote or the DVD player remote or both....Usually we have been able to find them under furniture, or in a drawer, or upstairs under someone's clothes, that was until we lost our dvd player remote this last time... No one is really sure how long it has been lost, I personally have not seen it since sometime in July, though I have been told it has been missing since before then....You would think manufacturers of dvd players would have the same controls that are on the remote as buttons on the actual player...Nope!

Our dvd player only has play, pause, next, and eject....There is no way to get to the menu or even change selections if you happen start off on the menu...Usually this is not an issue since most dvds today are made to auto play and bypass the menu system, but every few dvds we will run into one that goes straight to the menu and there is no way for us to actually watch the film, at least not using that dvd player....So for the past few months we have been living with a dvd player that we can not always watch dvds on! Yesterday when my parents were out they decided to get a universal remote that handles both the dvd player and the TV.

But this not just any universal remote, this is a universal remote made for a giant. I guess the idea behind it was, it is so large, there is no way it can be misplaced! I am not sure about that, but it sure is big: