Last hint for the movie quote

It's another line from the movie.

"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear."

I hope this helps.

Movie Quote hint

The movie isn't half baked, even though after rereading it I can see why someone might think that.  The movie is very fitting for this time of year.  I'm sure if you've been watching USA lately you've seen this movie.

Since someone else isn't doing it

Since we haven't had a Sunday's Saying in IDK, forever?  I'm taking it upon myself to post a name that movie line.  Sorry I don't have a prize to give away, but you guys will just have to play for pride, even though you can't cash pride at the bank.  So everyone think long and hard and see if you can guess what movie this line is from.

"At least you have a daddy, I was just rolled up one day and left out here in the cold."

Comment me with your guesses and I'll post the answer/winner. 

Weekend wrap up from Griswoldville

Exciting things happening around the Smith clan this weekend.  It was my direct and extended families Christmas parties.  Let me just say that my extended family is kind of large and gets bigger every year.  Kids just keep appearing every year at family outings and I personally don’t know where they came from.  I end up playing a game of match the baby to the parent. With so many kids, they’ve tried to find ways to entertain everyone and spend time together as a family.  Well this started out as something to get the kids out of the house while everyone got to my Granny’s house and got everything set up and ready.  It has now turned into a yearly event that everyone waits to start until everyone has arrived.  Normally they have a county wide scavenger hunt with the kids broken up into 3 groups and they have to drive all around completing task and finding items on their check list while being video recorded.  This year though someone was apparently inspired by the hit TV show "Minute to win it".  They still broke the kids up into 3 teams, but instead of driving all over creation, they had to complete a task in a minute or less.  My bride and I don’t normally compete in the scavenger hunt so we didn’t compete in this years event either.  One, it was cold outside, and two, we’re both just too school for cool, (thanks Pink).  I’m pretty upset that I was a slacker and broke the number one rule of blogging and didn’t take a camera or any pictures this entire weekend.  There would have been some classic shots of the competition.  One thing I’m the most upset about not getting a picture of is the ridiculous amounts of food that we have every year.  Mainly all sweets, cookies, brownies, cakes, pies, dips, sausage balls, and every other goodie you can think of.  The spread gets setup in the morning and we all just graze on it all day.  If you leave there hungry it’s your own fault. 
On our way home from the Christmas Extravaganza my bride and I saw some white on black dog relations.  The white dog always trying to keep the black dog down, the white dog trying to screw over the black dog, I’m talking about some roadside dog loving if you weren’t picking up what I was laying down.  Again, another time that I wish I had a camera handy.  Since most of you guys don’t know my family, they live out in the COUNTRY, it’s almost a 45 minute drive to the nearest Wal-Mart, an hour if you want to hit up a Target.  So I’m sure seeing a dog giving another dog the business is quite the norm to those folks, but not something my bride and I see everyday. 
Sunday Morning we went to my parents church.  My Bride and I showing up almost doubled the weekly attendance.  You’ll be hard pressed to find another small country church smaller and more countrier than this one.  It’s so country there’s a dog there at the front steps to greet you.  Now they just need to train the dog to hand you a bulletin when you walk in.
After Church we went back to my parents house to enjoy our Christmas lunch and exchange gifts.  We open gifts one present at a time starting at the youngest and going to the oldest so that everyone gets to see what everyone else got.  It can take some time to open gifts this way, but it’s nice to see everyone’s reactions to the gifts they got.
We used to open our families gifts on Christmas Eve, we’d light all the candles in the house and my dad would read the Christmas story from the Bible as we sat in the glow of candles and the light from what has to be one of the world’s ugliest Christmas trees.  How we started doing this, I have no idea, but now that we’ve grown up, moved out and away, it’s something we don’t do anymore.  I guess part of the reason is we open gifts during the day now so no need in candle light, and my nephew’s are little too impatient to sit through a reading of the word with gifts sitting in front of them.
After all the gifts had been exchanged and all the food eaten my bride and I headed home.  We made a few stops to look at Christmas lights in the falling flurries, there are some pretty big displays in Columbus this year, and one is raising money for Make a Wish, so we stopped by and made a donation.  All in all, it was a good weekend.

Guilty Pleasure

So, I have a new guilty pleasure.  The Sing off.  Have you guys been watching this show?  I LOVE good music and I love R&B.  I used to sing my heart out to Boyz II Men, Jodeci, Keith Sweat, Soul for Real, Tevin Campbell, Immature, Shai, Hi-Five, New Edition, and Uncle Sam.  I remember driving around singing my lungs out to these songs.  Me and My Boy, like how I went old school R&B there, used to break the songs up into parts, especially KC and Jo-Jo, and sing them like we were paid.  Watching the Sing Off on NBC has brought a lot of these memories flooding back, and reminded me why I used to be Boyz II Men’s #1 fan.  Golly I love good music.  Did any of you guys rock the beats back in the 90’s?  What are some of your favorite groups, songs?  Please leave me comments with your answers, some times I feel that Ms Jenkins is the only one reading my blog!  While I’m at it, Thank you Ms. Jenkins for being  such a loyal reader!

And yes I know this is four blogs in four days!  Just call me butter, cause I'm on a roll baby!

What I've learned

Don’t know if any of you guys are sports fans, or used to watch SportsCenter back when it was actually watchable, but if any of you did then you’ll probably remember a guy named Dan Patrick.  Well a few years ago Dan left “the Mother Ship” and went out on his own.  He now has his own radio show called “The Dan Patrick Show”, creative name right?  A friend of mine got me started listening to Mr. Dan Patrick’s show and so now I’m able to kill 3 hours a day with some enjoyable sports talk radio.  One of the last segments of each day is a segment called “What we’ve learned”.  In this segment each Danette has to say one thing that they’ve learned from the day’s show.  What they learned each day is usually something comical, but maybe we should all start taking note of the things we learned from day to day.
What have I learned today?  I learned a good friend of mine and his wife cut their Christmas budget in half and have used the excess to adopt a family in need.  I’ve heard some of the gifts this family is getting and I’m jealous and I know they’re going to have an awesome Christmas this year.

Stop! Its potty time!

Can you guys believe it?  Two blogs in as many days!?  It’s a miracle! 
It’s my job when I’m at home to take our little dachshund out to go to the bathroom.  This can sometimes be a pretty boring task.  To make this event more enjoyable I will spend time on my iPhone and Facebook, or sometimes I’ll sing to Mags.  All the songs I sing to her are reworded of course, so that they fit the task at hand.  Below are some of our favorite songs when it’s potty time.
Barbie Girl: “Come on Barbie let’s go party”.  Mag’s likes: “Come on Maggie, let’s go potty”
California Love: “California, knows how to party” Mag’s likes: “Maggie Doddle, has to go potty”
Smoking in the boys room: “Smokin’ in the boys room” Mag’s likes: “Peeing in the front yard”
Hammer Time: “Stop, it’s hammer time” Mag’s likes: “Stop, It’s potty time!”
And of course there are countless others that I can’t seem to remember right now because I decided to write a blog about it.  Go figure.

Feeling Regret

I’m going to be honest, I don’t have too many regrets in my life.  I’m very happy with most of the choices I’ve made in my short life.  But right now I have one big regret laying heavy on my heart.  This past Friday night my church had a fund raiser/outreach type event where you could be homeless for a night.  Money was being raised for the Fuller Center, a charity for housing started by Millard Fuller, you guys might know him best as the founder of Habitat for Humanity.  When I first heard of this event, I was very excited, it was something I really wanted to take part in.  But as they say, life happens and I thought I was going to be sent to Canada for work during this event so I pretty much gave up all hope of taking part.  Then last Monday I find out that my trip has been pushed back one week so I’d be able to participate, yay!  Well, there was a monetary donation needed to join in on Homeless for a Night, it was a fundraiser by the way, and on such short notice I couldn’t come up with the money needed.  Why do I regret this so much?  I could have tried harder.  I could have posted on Facebook that I needed donations to make me homeless for a night, I could have written a blog, before this post, and maybe my handful of followers would have pitched in, or maybe God would have put someone on my blog just to read it and donate even more than the needed amount for me to sleep in a cardboard box outside in the cold.  Would of, could of, should of, didn’t happen and now it’s eating at me.  My church is a church focused on the community, they plan to do much more with the Fuller Center, and I know I’ll have other chances to give back but I really want to give this time.  I believe this is only the second outreach event my Bride and I have missed since becoming a part of Refuge Point Church, but this one really hurt.  I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t even go out to listen to the concert put on by our praise band and show support for those poor souls out there freezing.  This has been weighting on my heart since Friday night.  If anyone knows me they know that I don’t show much emotion and I don’t really let anyone know when something is bothering me so it’s been difficult to put this down in digital ink and post it to my blog.  Hopefully I can forgive myself, because I know I’ve already been forgiven. Let me end this pitty party because there is nothing I can do about it now.  If you guys want to be blessed by a worship service and see what a small church can do for a hurting community come visit us at Refuge Point Church, you won’t be disappointed.

It's just a number, right?

Every so often a number will flash into my mind, a number that I have a very  hard time believing.  My age.  For a good minute I honestly had no idea how old I really was.  I almost had to count it out on my fingers to know my true age, and when all the counting was done I was in complete shock.  Not for one second do I believe that I’m 31 years old.  If you ask me I’m a 22 year old that’s taking a little longer than average to finish college.  I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I’m already in my 30’s.  I still feel young, I don’t know how being 30 is supposed to feel, but I’m sure it’s older than I feel.  Other than my growing spots of missing hair I still look like a young man.  It’s funny, you hear people say, “I remember when 30 was old”.  I think I’m at that point.  I know that 30 got on me much quicker than I ever imagined.  I don’t know, maybe I just thought at the age of 30 I’d be a much different person.  I thought I’d be waking up early every morning just because the sun was coming up and that’s what I was supposed to do.  I thought a good fart joke wouldn't make me laugh as much as it did when I was in my 20's.  I was watching a Professional sporting event not too long ago and they showed the ages of the players, and I noticed that I was older than everyone playing.  At that moment I knew all my hopes and dreams of being a professional athlete were crushed.  Oh well, as long as I still feel like I’m a 22 year old college slacker, that’s what I’m going to let myself continue to believe.  *sad face*

A note to Christmas

Dear Christmas,
I am writing to you to issue a formal complaint of your habitual line crossing, or month crossing as it is in this case. I am sick and tired of only being a side note for your 3 month long invasion. I remember back when, in the golden days, it was considered faux pas to decorate for Christmas before celebrating me. It used to be standard operating procedure to decorate for Christmas on the Friday after me, now known as Black Friday. Now I am just a day of rest before the biggest shopping day of the year, A shopping day spent buying gifts for you! I myself enjoy Jesus’ birthday as much as the next holiday, excluding Martin Luther King Jr’s day, as that holiday has a dream that all holiday’s will be celebrated equally, but Christmas, you have taken Jesus’ birthday and turned it into a birthquater. Christmas, it is not your manifest destiny to rule the entire calendar. New Year’s eve and I are fed up with your blatant disregard of our holiday status, and Halloween has joined us this year as he feels that this year you have encroached into his designated holiday space. Fourth of July has starting to turn more red than white and blue because he is being pushed from the shelves to make way for your decorations! I don’t know if you know when the Fourth of July is celebrated, but it’s on the effin 4th of July, which is almost dead center of the calendar, give or take a month. I’m not 100% sure on this, because I wasn’t paying attention, but I’m pretty sure Hanukkah said something about him being celebrated in December too. Kwanzaa is very irate and has already held conference calls with Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan to get this encroachtion, of the holidation, validation, emaciation, abomination, and some other tion words that I couldn’t even begin to spell, corrected!  In closing, Christmas, consider this as the first official warning for you to back off, or else further holiday actions will be taken.
Sincerely,
Thanksgiving

Bringing more enjoyment to my dishwashing

If you follow Lowe’s Home Improvement on Facebook then I’m sure you’ve seen the pre-Black Friday deals they ran this weekend.  Well my Bride made me aware of the deals so she and I spent our weekend trying to win coupon codes for 90% off of items.  Out of all the ads we tried we won one.  But to be honest, it’s one that we really wanted, and needed.  We won an Aquasource faucet for our kitchen sink.  Yay!  The faucet normally cost 130 some odd dollars, we paid 14 for it.  Can’t beat that with a stick!  We fought nobly for several other items, but didn’t win any other battles.  We really wanted to the kitchenaid mixer, and the Dyson vacuum. 
Here is what we used to be working with.

Here is what we were given

And here  it is all finished up and looking pretty

The faucet didn’t get great reviews online, but let me tell you, coming from what we had this thing is awesome.  Cleaning behind it so much easier, I wipe everything down after I wash the dishes.  It has the removable nozzle built into it, so all we have to do is pull on the head and we have a sprayer.  (That’s what she said)  Our old sprayer broke so we bought a replacement, and then the replacement didn’t work so it was pretty much just there for looks.  I believe we’re going to try and find a stopper or something to put in place of the old sprayer, just so it looks a little better.  Next we hope to completely replace the sink though.  We think we want a black sink, and one of higher quality than what came in our spec house.

Make your own Sodas?

So I listen to the Dan Patrick Show at work and he’s been pushing this product called SodaStream where you can make your own soda.  Have any of you guys heard of this?  Anyone used it?  If this thing really works I would really change the 2 liter bottle game at the Smith house.  It doesn’t say anything about recharging store bought drinks on the website, that I’ve found, but just wondering everyone’s thoughts and reviews?

Forcing my hand

I’m forcing myself to write a blog today.  I’ve had writers block lately, than mixed with the fact that I haven’t really done anything of note lately has made for a lack of post.  Just a warning, this might turn into a “random” blog at any point.  I like for my blogs to be funny and informative, but for some reason I just haven’t felt funny lately.  My Bride would probably say that I’m never funny, but I tend to disagree. 
Something that I’ve learned since getting married, everyone wants to know when you’re having kids.  Seems like an innocent question, but what they’re really asking is, “Are you guys boning with a mission, or still just boning for fun?”  Think about that for a second.  And really why do you want to know what’s happening in my bride and I’s bedroom?  When we’re ready to tell you we’re having a kid, we’ll send you a picture of the kid on a Christmas card. 
On our Honeymoon I finished Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol”.  It was a decent enough book, but to me it didn’t come close “Angel’s and Demon’s” or “The DaVanci Code”  I was really excited about this book, especially since so much of it was focused on Washington DC.  Maybe I had just set my expectations too high, I’ve been known to do that.  Has anyone else read these books?  If so, what are your thoughts?

After finishing “The Lost Symbol” I started “Playing for Pizza” by John Grisham.  Now this has been a very enjoyable book.  Being a sports fan I’ve really gotten into it.  The only problem is for some reason I’ve had a hard time finding time to read.  I don’t know what it is with me, but sometimes I’ll just read and read and read with what appears to be endless time, then I’ll get to point where I can’t seem to find a single free second to read a word.  Anyone else go through these ups and downs?  I feel like I’ve only read 5 or 6 books this entire year.  I’ve almost read that many in just one month in years past.  Sometimes I know it’s the book that’s making it so hard for me to read, but I’m really enjoying this book. 

Halloween made me thinking about ghost and ghost hunting.  I really want to be a ghost hunter.  I watch “The Ghost Hunters” on TV and what they do amazes me.  I’ve never had any kind of a run in with a ghost or spirit, so part of me doesn’t believe in such things.  But some of my family members say they've had encounters and you don't think your family is crazy, so you tend to start to believe in such things.  Any of you guys ever had any run ins with ghosts? 
I know this blog wasn’t funny, probably wasn’t entertaining, and posed a lot of questions.  But I thank you guys for reading my forced blog post.  I need to find a blog a day thing.  Maybe I’ll get my google on and see what I find out there in the vast interwebs to keep the posts coming. 

We're Number One!

So for the past two weekends I’ve been lucky enough to be given tickets to the Auburn games.  Man, there is nothing that can match being in Jordan-Hare stadium on game day.  I get goose bumps in that place.  When the crowd is cheering and the tigers are winning, it’s hard to beat.  Heck I just got goose bumps sitting here thinking about it as I write.   Don’t know if any of yous guys have had a chance to go this year, but before the game they play “All I do is Win” and when the song says “Everybody hands go up”, the entire stadium throws their hands in the air, chills.  And don’t even get me started on the Eagle flying, the jets flying over, and the players running through the tunnels.  When I played football there was maybe 100 people in the stands, so few that you couldn’t even hear crowd noise.  I want to know what it’s like to be on that field and to hear what they have to hear down there. 
I’ve been to games in a bunch of cities, but nothing has ever matched Jordan-Hare.  Even to the point that visiting teams and sports casters have written about how awesome it is to go to a game on the Plains.  Incase you guys haven’t seen this article after the South Carolina game, I believe everyone needs to give it a read.  Scott Van Pelt of ESPN wrote this article a few years ago after his visit to the plains, another must read for all Auburn fans.
Now that the Tigers are number 1 in the BCS,  I must say it makes me a bit nervous.  Let me tell you why, the number 1 team has been upset in the last 3 weeks.  I was kind of hoping Auburn would fall into the two spot and let Oregon take the #1 so we could still win for the BCS game, but wouldn’t have the pressure of being the Number 1 team.  And Oregon stands a good chance at the upset this weekend against USC.  Oh well, I have faith in my Tigers. 
After the first few games I wasn’t completely sold on Cam Newton, one reason is I missed three games because I got married and went on a two week honeymoon.  Two of the games I missed were the South Carolina and Clemson games, pretty big games to miss for Cam Newton.  Missing those games only allowed me to see stats, which didn’t tell the whole story.  I didn’t get to see how Cam could pick up the entire team and carry them to a victory.  After watching a few games on the TV and live I now give him the respect he’s due.  So Cam, I apologize for not jumping on your bandwagon sooner. 
Another thought I’ve had, how awesome would it be to have a Heisman winner, and win the National Championship one year after Alabama did the same thing?  They can say they have more, but we can say we’ve won one more recently.  And you can’t forget that Auburn already has more Heisman winners then they do. 
So to all my Orange and Blue, Weage Weagle cause all I do is win win win, no matter what

Hippie man...

So I haven’t had my hair cut since a week before my bride and I said I Do.  If you’re doing the math that’s a month and a half.  My hair is getting kind of long and is need of being cut.  I keep begging my bride to cut my hair to save me the 15 bucks it cost at the cuttin’ corner, yes that is where I go to get my hair did.  If the name isn’t funny enough, it’s not even on a corner, it’s sitting across the street from a church.  I’m half way tempted to just break out the clippers tonight and go #3 guard on my head.  I’m getting sick of doing this comb over and from looking at my wedding pictures, the comb over isn’t really doing that good of a job.  A lot of scalp being shown in those pictures.  I guess tonight I’ll go home and beg my bride one more time to cut my hair, if she won’t do it, it’s off with his hair! 
Here are some pictures of from my last long hair days.

Update, of sorts

I don’t know how everyone else writes their blogs, but I write mine during breaks or while I’m running a report or some other time consuming task at work.  I type them up in word and just leave my word doc open all day until I finish the blog then I copy and paste it into blogger.  Well I’m telling you this story because I started a G-rated blog about the honeymoon that my Bride and I went on that has vanished.  I don’t remember closing the document out, but I do remember titling it and saving it to my blog folder on my desktop.  I have no idea what happened to it, but it’s apparently gone.  I’ve learned that when I have to rewrite something it never turns out as good as it was the first time I wrote it so I’m not even going to try.  Sorry guys and girls, I know I’ve disappointed you.  Below are some random thoughts to help fill the disappointment.
Driving from Rome GA to Auburn AL and then to Key West FL in one day sounds good in theory, but really sucks in practice.  That’s a lot of time spent in one car.
It took me a good week to get back into the swing of working again, and apparently even longer to get back into the swing of blogging.
If you don’t like eating boogers, don’t pick your nose with your tongue out.  Not a true life experience, just a funny thought I had while driving the 17 hours from Auburn to Key West while my bride slept. 
It cost a lot to drive the entire Florida Turnpike.  Especially if you have to stop for gas.
You can use frequent flier miles for more than flying!  We used my miles to get a nights stay at a super nice hotel in Orlando.
Susannah, thanks for the awesome recommendation of lodging in Key West.  We enjoyed it so much we had to send you that post card.
Dreaming about winning the lottery never seems to get old.
Today starts the busiest time of the year for my industry, followed by the slowest time.
The more games Auburn wins the more nervous I get before every game.  Each win gives us more to lose.
I had a great weekend last weekend, saw the Globe Trotters Friday night and then took my bride to see the Auburn/Arkansas game Saturday, followed by another fun day date with my bride at the Hummingbird Festival.
Apparently walking a dog with a pink leash/collar combo, and a shirt with a rhinestone Hummingbird and a Huge flower isn’t enough for people to realize the dog is a female and to not ask me “What’s HIS name?".

Fried Oreo’s aren’t as good as one would think…  I take that back, they’re pretty much exactly what you would think.
I’m waiting on Charity to blog about our visit to see them and the Shrimp Festival so I won’t have to try and remember anything and I can just copy and paste her blog.  She’s better at it than I am.

Wedding Weekend Wrap up

Every girl dreams of her perfect wedding, and let me tell you, this girl right here got hers September 11th.  I mean, wait what?  I’m not a girl…  But I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect wedding.  My job was simple, stand up there and look handsome, NAILED IT!  For those of you that don’t know, my Bride and I got married in a little stone chapel on top of a hill, just like in the fairytales.  I honestly couldn’t be happier with the way the wedding turned out.  My Bride was as beautiful as ever, if anyone has been by my Facebook page and seen the photo preview from our photographer you’ll agree.  I was not in the least bit nervous about getting married, I was nervous about standing in front of everyone and kissing my Bride, but once the service started all of that went away because it was just she and I standing up there, no one else seemed to be in the room. 
I was very proud of myself for only laughing once during the ceremony, and I tried my best to hold that in, so it came out as more of a full hearted giggle.  Is that even possible? 
I don’t really think I can ever put into words how pretty the setting of our wedding was.  Frost Chapel at Berry College is an amazing place, Berry College itself is.  If any of you get a chance to ride out there for the day I highly suggest you do it.  It’s not all that far from you Susannah, *hint hint*.  Being that I was the groom in this event and my Bride was well, the bridge, we don’t have any pictures of our own.  But here are some pictures from a fellow blogger, and the person that set my Bride and I up, Blog 1, Blog 2, and Blog 3.  I encourage everyone to go and look at her pictures.
We did things a bit differently for our wedding, I got to see my Bridge before she walked down the isle. We did what is called a “reveal”. I stood at the alter with my back turned, and when my Bride was ready she walked in and tapped me on my shoulder.  As I turned around to see her our photographers took pictures of us seeing each other for the first time.  I liked doing it this way because after a few pictures were taken, everyone left the church and it was just my Bride and I alone for about 10 minutes just enjoying each other, not in that way you perverts!  Then we all went outside and finished up some bridal party pictures.  BTW, or photographer was amazing, if anyone needs some pictures done we suggest you look them up, their website is www.hedgehogphotos.com.  They are a young married couple that does this for fun.  I hope they thought our wedding day was fun, because we feel like we put them through all kinds of heck.
One last little boring detail, my Bride gave me the one thing that I asked for out of this entire wedding.  I let her have her wedding, so everything you see in the pictures is all her doing, and I think she did an amazing job.  But I requested one thing, and one thing only.  We left the church to Linus and Lucy, aka the Peanuts theme song.  My cousin played the Organ and Flute for us, and one of my Groomsmen, Adam, and another good friend Casi sang when “God made you” during the lighting of the Unity Candle.  Which by the way is something I tried to stop, the church had no A/C and it was hot, I wanted as few candles burning as possible! 
Since all this wedding stuff is over with I’m hoping my Bride will get back to blogging, I know she’ll do a much better job recalling and telling this wedding story than I did.

Getting in on the wordless Wednesday

Greatest weekend EVER

I can’t believe  I forgot about this until just now.  Maybe this will bring me out of my blogger blah.  Guys, the most awesome thing ever happened a few weekends ago in the back yard of the About to be Smith House.  There is a church right across the street from our house that owns the land behind our house.  Every year they have a large event called “Celebrate America”.  It is normally held on the weekend before the Fourth of July, but for the last few years it has rained on that weekend so they moved it to the last weekend in August.  All their thinking and planning didn’t really pay off as it didn’t rain for the entire month of July, or any of August, until the last weekend of August.  They moved forward with the event though, and people came out, boy did they come out, on foot, car, truck bed, four wheeler, and I believe I saw a lawn mower.  The event has a car show, a rock wall to climb, inflatable jungle gyms, food vendors, fire trucks, live music, and a fireworks display at the end of the night.  It was what we in the country like to call “A big to-do”.  This year though, they added something extra special, something that we haven’t seen in years past, something that excited me very much.  They had MONSTOR TRUCKS!  That’s right, Monster trucks, you know, “Sunday Sunday Sunday, come one come all to see the monsters of mayhem, the goliath’s on grass, high flying, death defying Monster truck rally, 5 dollars for the entire seat, but you’re only going to need the edge edge edge.”  My Bride and I had some running around to do so I was pretty nervous that I was going to miss all the car crushing action.  Reluctantly I agreed to go to town to finish up these errands.  As expected, it took us longer than expected to do our running around in town.  Heartbroken that I’ve probably missed the monster trucks, we headed home in hopes of at least catching the fireworks, if the entire thing hadn’t been rained out.  As we start to get close to the house we notice that there are still cars parked on the side of the road, this lets us know that the fireworks show is still on.  It’s getting dark, but not dark enough for fireworks so we hustle to the house to unload our goods and get ready for the fireworks.  As I’m driving past the opening in the field my bride ask, “What is going on?  Everyone is standing in one area looking at something.”  It wasn’t until we pulled in the drive and parked that we saw a Monster Truck in all it’s glory, air born and ready to lay the vengeance reserved for God Almighty on some poor sinful cars.  We pull the truck into the back yard for our front row seats, roll the windows down, It’s still raining at this point, and enjoy the sights and sounds of Monster Truck Car crushing goodness.  When all was said and done we heard the announcement that these trucks are from Monsters on a Mission.  If there mission was to thrill, as the great former president George “Dubbya” Bush said, “Mission Accomplished!”  At this point I wasn’t even sure if my heart could handle the excitement of a fireworks display, but I was willing to give it a shot and test my old ticker out. We moved out of the truck and to our covered porch to watch the display as we sang “I’m proud to be an American” over and over again, because no Fireworks display in the south is complete without Lee Greenwood.  After wiping away our tears, screaming USA, and making Toby Keith for President signs, we called it a night, thus ending the GREATEST WEEKEND EVER.

Blogger Blah part deux

I'm still in my blogging funk, but I really want to post something.  I haven't thought of anything to post and then I was searching through some photos on my computer to show our photog about the area we're getting married and I stumbled across these photos.  So I thought I'd share the ridiculousness that is the soon to be Smith House for 6 pound 4 ounce little baby Jesus.  I'm sure Melissa has posted most of these pictures on her blog, but I thought I'd refresh everyone's memory.  So I hope everyone enjoys.

First here is our tree next to a normal person's tree in the back of my truck. 

And here it is finished.

People, I'm 6 foot 4 inches of twisted steel and sex appeal, and I can't touch the top of this tree...

That was just the main tree, we have a tree in EVERY room in the house, even the bathrooms.  I couldn't find pictures of every tree, but I found the Master Bedroom tree.

And the Kitchen Tree

Next one really isn't a tree, but we make a tree out of our chandelier over the kitchen table.

We put out a nice setup for baby Jesus

And we all get ready for bed because Santa is coming!

And in the morning we find that Santa Paws visited us! (Santa Paws is serious about her work)

And Santa Paws guards all the stockings to make sure everyone gets their gifts.

Maggie over sleeps every year and misses Santa Paws, but she still puts on her Christmas Colors and her Christmas Smile.

I wish I could have found pictures of my Charlie Brown tree, (it's in the office) and the guest bedroom Bear tree.  Every year I look forward to Dec 26th so I can start taking this stuff down.  Melissa loves it and she decorates from Thanksgiving until Dec 24th.  The sad thing is, even with all our trees we have ornaments left with out a spot to hang.  Sorry for the lame post, but like I said, I'm in a blogging funk.  I need help to get out of it.

Blogger blah...

So, I know I haven't been posting much here lately.  I"m sorry for that, but right now I'm at a point where I'll think I'll have something good to post, but then it just goes no where so I give up and stop writing.  Everything just seems so blah right now.  Anyone else get like this?  For the last 3 days I've wanted to blog, but when I went to blog nothing came out.  I have blog constipation.  I need more fiber in my blog?    Here is the latest blog I started, but couldn't finish.

Two days in on the reboot of 30 day Shred
With the wedding fast approaching I decided I needed to make sure I could still wear the 34 in waist pants I've ordered for my tux.  I have to make sure my butt is small enough to cash the check my mouth wrote.  So for the past two days I've completed level 1 of the 30 day shred.  Few notes I'd like to share with Jillian Michaels.  1. two 30 second sessions of push up?  Yeah, ok, alright.  Really?  I'm a man in some kind of shape other than round and I can't do a minute a man push up.  If this DVD is focused for women, I'm thinking you lost a lot of them of them right here.  I started out the 1st day doing my first 30 seconds like a man, set two of my man push ups saw me complete one and half before going to my knees and finishing like the little girl that I really am.  2.  We don't have the 5 lb free weights that they say you need, and I'm so glad we don't.  I'd probably be dead now if we did.  I mean, I had already punched 911 in on my cell phone after starting the work out night one and was ready to call for the Wife to Bee to press send if it was needed.

And right here is where I ran out of steam.  I didn't even get to my thoughts about me day dreaming of punching her in her lady balls, as the Landreth's like to say, during the squatting and punching part of the work out.  Oh well, maybe I'm losing my mind, or at least my thoughts.  I guess I'm too focused on being on a beach some where with my new bride soaking up the rays and planning the rest of our lives together.  *sigh* 

January 2nd, 2001

In my past post I put that I was in a car wreck before Melissa and I met that pushed back when she and I were going to meet.  Someone asked for what happened, so here is what happened as best as I can remember from January 2nd, 2001.  The day the Itsybishi died.
As you can see from the pictures, it had snowed the morning of Jan 2nd, something that is very rare here in the South.  I was working the evening shift at my job which put me in a little more danger.  I was asked by several people to not go to work due to the roads, but I’m a man and I knew I could make it with no trouble in my little low to the ground front wheel drive car.
I made it into work with no problems, the snow had started to melt and so the roads were kind of wet, but with the temps above freezing it wasn’t a problem.  The problem didn’t start until the temperature went down with the sun.  We started hearing reports of road closures in the area so people were being sent home.  Me, being the valuable employee that I was at the time was asked to stay to handle a few things before they let me go.  When I did finally get out of there for the night it was a little too late. 
I was on I-85 heading south from GA into Alabama.  I was just crossing the Chattahoochee River when I got my doors blown off by an 18 wheeler that was driving way too fast for the conditions.  As soon as he passed my car the wind off his trailer knocked my traction off and the poor Itsybishi started to slide.  I lost all control of the car and slid from the right hand lane into the barrier of the bridge of the left hand lane.  I hit the barrier pretty much head on and then I bounced back into traffic.  I knew other traffic was coming so I started the car back up, since the kill switch tripped when I hit the barrier.  I had just put the car back into gear and was coming off the clutch to pull myself back off the road when disaster struck.  And by disaster I mean another 18 wheeler rolling along at speeds to high for the road conditions.  The truck didn’t see me, it didn’t slow down, it didn’t hit it’s breaks, it just plowed right into my driver’s side door.  Due to the ice on the bridge the itsybishi started to spin from the collision, I spun right under the rear trailer tires  of the 18 wheeler, where I became hung.  Not sure how many of you have ever crossed the Chattahoochee River bridge on i-85, but it’s not that short of a bridge.  Keep that in mind as I tell you that I was hung under the trailer of this truck until it was able to spit me out into the median at the end of the bridge.  The truck was moving so fast that it traveled for about another 200 feet before rolling over onto it’s side.  Now I just realized that I forgot to mention that I wasn’t alone in the car.  A good friend of mine, that didn’t have a car at the time, was in the passenger seat when all of this went down.  My first thought was him.  I checked on him and he was alive, thank God! 
Now that I knew both of us were alive my thoughts were too of course get out of the car.  Drivers side door, not opening, as you can see from the pictures there was a good reason it didn’t open.  My passenger wasn’t in his right mind due to him hitting his head so I’m not really sure if he tried to open his door like I asked him to or not, but none the less it appeared we were trapped in the car.  Then I noticed that every window in the car had been knocked out, so we both went up and out of the sunroof to icy cold freedom.  I ran down to where the truck flipped to check on them.  Neither of them were hurt and they were real concerned about us.  At this time I was feeling no pain, so I’m thinking everything is fine except for the poor little itsybishi.  Guys, this little car was my life, I <3-ed this car so much I probably would have made sweet car lovin’ to it had the tailpipe not been so hot.  I’m looking over my car about to break down in tears when I see a guy standing next to me that stopped to help.  I looked at him, not knowing that I had a broken rib, glass embedded in my face with blood pouring out of my open wounds on my face and arm, and ask him if he thought the car could be fixed and where is the missing wheel?  I just knew I’d need that missing wheel when they went to fix the car.  Oh the things you think of at times of crisis. 
The ambulance arrives to take off my friend because he is still quite loopy.  At this point he doesn’t understand that he was just in a car wreck.  The EMT staff ask me if I’m ok and I reply that I’m fine, but it hurts just little bit to take a deep breath.  So the strap me into the ambulance with them and away we go.  I’ve already listed my injuries so no sense in listing them again, but my friend had no cuts on him, but he had a huge knot on his head and a concussion.
Last little funny part to the story, as I said in the beginning I was crossing the river coming from GA into AL.  GA state troopers and AL state troopers arrive on the scene.  The two of them start discussing who should write up the report.  AL said it should be GA because the wreck happened in GA, but GA said AL because the cars came to rest in AL.  This issue hadn’t been cleared up by the time I’m hauled off to the hospital so I had no idea who I needed to see to get my license back, or to get the police report.  The hospital staff was finally informed by the GA state trooper that GA took the accident so I needed to see the GA state patrol to get my accident report, and license back.
I didn’t know how badly my face was cut up, which was the main reason I didn’t want to meet Melissa, until I was sitting in the hospital and my face was warming up from the cold and I started to feel pain.  At this point I asked what was wrong with my face, why was it burning it so much.  (question to myself, why didn’t I notice the blood that was covering the front of my shift?)  The hospital would not show me a mirror and they wouldn’t let me look at myself.  All they did was lay me down and take a dry cloth to brush some of the glass off my face.  Can you say ouch?  I had to get the rest of the glass off of and out of my face and hair myself when I got home.  And in case anyone is wondering why I kept calling the car Itsybishi, it was a Mitsubishi Eclipse, and everyone said it looked so tiny when I was next to it or getting in or out of it so it was named the Itsybishi, think itsy bitsy spider…
Sorry this story is so long, but I wanted to make sure I got all the details I could remember in.

That's me in the second picture looking at the car.The people at the junk yard were talking to Jason and I when we were looking at the car and they asked if we knew the guy in the car, and that they were pretty sure that who ever was in the car didn't live.  Jason told him that the guy in the car did live and that he was standing right over there, and pointed to me.

Answers to Susannah's Quetions

Well, I left the blog out there for a little while in hopes of getting more questions to answer, but alas, there were none.  To me this could mean a few things, 1.) No one really cares so why waste time asking questions they don’t want to know the answers too, 2.) I’ve told you everything you ever wanted to know about me in my blog post, or 3.) everyone that reads my blog has already known me for a long time so they pretty much know what the answers are going to be.  That being said, Susannah and I have never met, I found her through Melissa asking me for the answers to Sunday’s Sayings so I started stalking her blog through Melissa’s blog.  She has known Melissa for a quite some time, and they reconnected through blogger, so yay blogger.  Speaking of which, Melissa has shown me some old photos of yous guys at a birthday party years ago.  I might just have to scan it and post it for everyone to enjoy.  ;)  Now, on to the Q&A.

1. Where did you grow up?  I grew up all over Middle GA.  I’m a PK, preacher’s kid, so my father moved us around quite often.  When I was born my family was living in McIntyre GA, then we moved to Meansville, GA, from there to Macon GA, from Macon to Atlanta, and from Atlanta to Beulah Alabama.  If anyone else asks me though I always say I grew up in Atlanta. 
2. Where did you go to college?  I started my long college career at Southern Union State Community College, after 7 years of Southern Union I took my 92 useless credit hours and successfully dropped out of college.  This is probably my biggest regret, but when I ran out of money after having to take the same classes over and over again at SUSCC, I decided it was time for me to just give up and go on.  Keep in mind, I wasn’t retaking the classes because I was failing them, I was retaking them because they kept telling me the class I took was no longer any good and that I had to take the newer version of the same class because something had changed.  So after taking Accounting 1 twice, then Pre-Cal, which became Pre-Cal with Trig, that then needed to be Business Cal, and the same story for my English classes, and Biology, and then other classes that I took because they told me to take, to find out I didn’t need the class.  Do you see why I gave up?  Seven years is a long time to be at a 2 year school.  I guess they just saw a sucker and milked me for every penny they could.  Who’s the goose?  
3. How did you and Melissa meet?  Melissa and I were set up on a blind date by Charity, read her at Charity’s Chatter.  We were supposed to meet on a certain day and go on a double date with Charity and her man, but I had a horrible car wreck and was in no shape to meet anyone.  After a little healing time I borrowed my roommate’s car to go meet Melissa in Winn Dixie’s parking lot.  (you can’t make this stuff up folks)  Funny story, when my roommate met his wife for their first date he had to borrow my car for the date.  So he and I both used each other’s cars to meet our wives.  What are the odds?  After a brief courtship of 10 years, Melissa and I will wed this Sept 11th.  An anniversary I should never forget, or so the posters say.  Melissa tells this story much better than I do because she remembers the day and what we were each wearing, but all I remember is meeting her and then us hanging out and talking all night at my place of residents at the time.

Pictures of my car that I wrecked, in the second picture you can see the car I was in when Melissa and I met.

Wednesday Rant, posted on Thursday

I thought up this post yesterday, but wasn’t able to type it up and post it until today.  So, here’s some of my random thoughts.
1.)    Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie are UGLY.  Why does everyone think these ladies are attractive?  I’m so sick of hearing people talking about how good they look.  Angelina looks like white trash with saggy lady parts, and Julia looks like a medicine man shrunk her head but left her eyes, lips and nose their normal size.  If her face was a sheet of paper her features would be outside of the print margins. 
2.)    My assumption that biker chick = saggy boobs was confirmed yesterday on my way back from lunch.  Thanks wrinkly skinned biker chick for the imagine that will unfortunately be burned into my eyes forever.
3.)    Why is it that I can iron a shirt, it looks perfect on the ironing board with no wrinkles, I’ll pick it up off the board put it on, think everything is great, but then I’ll look in the mirror to brush my teeth and hair and notice that the shirt still looks like it’s been wadded up and rolled around on?
4.)    There are so many movies out right I want to see, but just don’t have the free time to sit in a theater and watch.  Toy Story, Dinner for Schmucks, Shrek, and The Other Guys.
5.)    I’ve decided that when I get to retirement age I’m moving to a Historical area so I can give tours. 
6.)    I’m ready to retire now…
7.)    Susannah did a post where she opened the floor for people to ask her questions, I’m going to do the same thing.  Any questions you want to ask me about anything I’ve blogged about, or any other personal questions fire away.  That will give me another blog that I can post so I won’t have to think of anything new to write.  (I’m super lazy people)
I know this was short and sweet, but I want to go ahead and put it out there.  Oh, and Welcome Brandy, my newest follower, I don’t know how you found me, but I’m glad you did. 
Leave me some love peeps!

And boom goes the dynamite...

A little update from the Soon to be Smith household.  Friday we went for my Grooms fitting to make sure we like the tux and we have all the right measurements.  If you’ll remember I was complaining that they measured my waist as a 41, I pitched a fit and so they ordered me a 36.  Well guess what…  My pants came in and they did not fit…  They didn’t fit because they were too big!  Take that measuring tape, in the face, in the face!  My order has been changed to the rightful 34/34.  My coat also needed to be altered.  Apparently I have freakishly long arms, so they’re having to add an inch to my 44 long coat.
Saturday we were thrown a couples shower from some friends.  It was a great time and I’m so thankful for all the friends that showed up to show us support.  We got even more goodies, people even brought me tools!  The venue was amazing, it was a barn at an old plantation house, which, FYI I LOVE old plantation style homes.  The house was turned into a bed and breakfast, but they shut that down about 3 years ago and only hold events there now.  The house was opened so we got to go in and walk around.  I so want to live in one of those when I grow up.
Sunday was a day of rest, as the Good Lord intended.  We were both just so tired from everything, me from celebrating my tux pants being a size 34, and Melissa from, well I don’t know I was too busy celebrating to notice what anyone else was doing.  We turned on the TV and curled up in the bed with the pets and napped.  The only down side to our great nap was that I missed the rain.  That’s right, it finally rained at the house.  I don’t know how much or how long (That’s what she said) but life giving water, the nectar of the God’s, blessed our poor parched earth.  Now if we can get a few more days of rain I’ll cut the grass without fear of killing it.

Sunday Randoms...

I haven't been all that happy with the quality or quantity of my blogs lately.  I'm beginning to think that I'm a horrible story teller.  Or maybe my memory is degrading the content of my stories?  I'm normally a funny guy, but my blogs here lately haven't been humorous at all.  I'm going to work on this though.  I want everyone to enjoy reading my blogs.

On another serious note.  I'm not sure how many of you guys watch Deadliest catch on Discovery channel, but these last few shows have been tough to watch.  They have been dealing with one of the most popular captains passing.  Discovery channel has done such a great job of covering this.  It has been handled with so much class.  Thank you Discovery for taking this incredibly touch situation and showing it in such a tasteful way.

Melissa and I have two showers down, two more to go, unless anyone else wants to throw us one!  So far we've done pretty good on the goods.  Registering for all our gifts was exciting, but stressful.  After looking at everything we put on the list we started to fill selfish.  Does anyone really need all the stuff we put on this list?  Oh well, getting gifts is FUN!  It's like a Christmas every weekend here at the soon to be Smith House.

Now we're getting ready for the honeymoon.  We know what we want to do, now we're just buttoning down the details.  Thanks to Susannah we've picked us a place to crash in Key west for a few days.  Then we're going to board a boat in Miami for a little cruise.  I <3 to cruse.  It's so nice to not have to worry about anything.  I so love being on the water, and being stress free.  No phones, no access to the internet, no work emails.  I think my job will be on a cruise ship.

Speaking of next jobs, I've decided that with my love of history when I retire I'm going to get me a job as a tour guide at some historical place.  I think I would really enjoy sharing my love of history and knowledge of history with strangers.  My only problem is that I'm pretty shy.  Melissa is the spokesperson for our family.  A lady at church told us the other day that our marriage will last because I'm quite and I let Melissa do all the talking.  Hopefully she's right.

I'm on a huge pizza kick right now.  I just can't get enough pizza.  It doesn't matter what brand of pizza it is.  It can be from a chain for a frozen pizza we warmed up ourselves.

FYI, it's kind of hot outside.  Good thing I handle the heat well. Bad thing, our A/C never seems to stop running, I fear what our power bill is going to look like.  I'm sure Alabama Power is loving it though.

If you spray carpet cleaner, make sure you have carpet brush in hand after spraying because a cat will lick the carpet cleaner, and carpet clean will said cat puke, a lot.  I stepped in some dooty in the yard the other night and didn't know.  When I noticed it I started trying to remember everywhere that I had walked so I could clean carpet.  I sprayed the foaming carpet cleaner on some of the spots that I knew had I walked on and then walked off to find the carpet scrubbing brush.  As I'm in the cabinet with all the cleaning supplies I hear a God awful screaming moan come from a cat.  Then I hear Melissa saying, "Possum licked the carpet cleaner and he's throwing up."  I guess it was good thing that I already had the carpet cleaner out because I was about to really need it.  Possum is fine now and back to his normal crazy self, we were really worried about him that night though.

I noticed this post was kind of long, it's Sunday and I'm lazy so I'm not proofreading.  If there are any typo's or miss spelled letters you're just going to have to deal with it. 

Need some help...

Little bit of back ground here.  Melissa and I are planning to honeymoon in Key West so I've been looking around for things to do.  I've been to the keys before and I remember there not being too much to do on the island.  Have any of you guys been to the keys?  I think Melissa wants to just sit by the pool or on a beach and chill, but I'm afraid I will bore of this and want something else to do. What fun things are there to do?  I know I want to snorkel, so I've been looking at that.  But when you google what to do in Key West it pretty much says snorkel, scuba, or take a ride on a boat.  Keep in mind this will be in September so I might be going a little stir crazy over being away from my TV during college football season.

The most I remember about Key West from my trip down there in the late 90's was that the beaches are crushed coral, and I bought a T-shirt that had a pretty profane saying on it.  Oh, and we got spanked at some beach volleyball by some locals.  (Diving on a crushed coral beach HURTS! especially when you get in the water afterwards.)

I map quested the drive today, I must say I'm not looking forward to it!  744 miles, 13 hours.  Thank God for cruise control!  I'm no stranger to a long drive though, so Key West, here we come!  Might turn out to be Griswald Honeymoon!

Is this cheating?

Is it cheating that my bride and I keep checking our online registries to see what gifts have been purchased for you us so far?  We have another shower coming up this weekend and we’ve been checking all three of our list to see what’s missing.  Then we play a game to try and guess who bought us what from the list.  So far we have one shower down and 3 coming up in weeks to follow.  We’re going to my folks house this weekend for a shower my fam is throwing, then I’m invited to a couples shower, and then Melissa has one final shower in Birmingham.  In case any of my loyal readers out there want to surprise me with a gift, we’re registered at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Target, and Dillard’s.  So far we haven’t gotten anything from the Dillard’s registry. 
Since we’re talking about showers, Melissa had a shower last weekend thrown by her Step Mother, and two other friends of family.  We went to Birmingham for the event, I did some yard work with her father, and he and I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch during the shower.  We got some fun stuff and we couldn’t wait to get home and admire our new goodies.  When we arrived home we were shocked to find just how hot our house was.  At some time over the weekend while we were gone our A/C unit quit.  The third summer in a row that we’ve had to call a repair man.  Turns out our line to drain the condensation got pinched so the drain pan filled up, triggered the safety and killed our system. 
In other wedding news, we have the tuxes picked out.  I go for my groom’s fitting next Friday.  This is just to make sure that we like the colors and style of tux we chose and make sure everything fits me.  I was very hurt when they measured my waist and told me I wear a 41 inch waist.  There is NO WAY that is right!  I told them to order me a 36 because I am NOT wearing a 41 inch pant.  I guess I’m about to have to get off my arse and do something incase they weren’t lying to me about my pant size. 

Domestic Duties - FAIL

As I’ve stated in my last few blog post, I’ve been crazy busy at work.  Well yesterday wasn’t an exception.  I’ve been working late every night for the past two weeks.  Tuesday Melissa threatened my life if I worked late yesterday because we had an appointment to meet with a photographer for our wedding.  Well low and below I’m sitting at my desk, head down, pounding away on a project when I get the angry phone call from mission control.  Its official, I’m late, and still at work.  The appointment was for 7:00, and it was 7:15 when I got the call from the boss.  I try to neatly put an end to what I’m doing so I can get out the door.  I rush over for the meeting, arriving around 7:30.  We meet with the photographer, the same guy that did our engagement session and we believe he’s going to do our wedding as well.  His prices are great and his work is amazing.  As we’re leaving the meeting I make a comment that doesn’t go over all that well with the boss, “I’ve got to log back in and finish up this work.”
We get to the house a little after 8:00 and Melissa starts making dinner.  I log in and continue working.  I take a quick break from work to eat when it’s ready, then right back to my computer.  At this point I’m sure you’re wondering why the blog is titled “Domestic Duties – FAIL”, and the answer is…  It’s my job to wash the dishes every night.  Something I don’t mind doing because I hate a cluttered sink.  I load the small items into the dishwasher, plates, forks, spoons, glasses, those types of things, and I hand wash the bigger items, Pots (which are Revere ware that has copper that I have to polish after every use) , pans, mixing bowls, our non dishwasher safe knifes, and the wooden utensils, I also wipe down the stove, counter tops and the sinks.  My thinking was, if I can finish up this work real quick, I’ll wash the dishes, clean the cat box, walk Maggie and get ready for bed.  Well, real quick didn’t really happen.  I finally finished up and logged out around 11:45, 45 minutes past my normal bed time.  I walk in the kitchen and peak at the dishes, it kills me, I think about washing them, but I can’t be late for work so I have to get in the bed.  I decide to clean the cat box, a task that has to be done nightly with our four cats or they’ll start looking for other places to make potty, walk Maggie and go to bed.  When I woke up this morning I realized how disappointed I was in myself when I saw the kitchen.  Did the cats get up there and use more dishes?  I don’t remember it looking so bad.  So this may sound weird, but I can’t wait to get home and handle these dishes.  Melissa has told me that I have “Dishues” because I have a certain way that I like the dishes loaded in the dishwasher, and a certain way I like to hand wash the other things.  Since we’re talking about it, do any of you use this amazing drying mat?  I heart this mat.

My only complaint is sometimes I have more dishes than it will hold.  But it’s great because we didn’t want a dish strainer thing sitting on the counter, but this thing just folds up and gets put away with the other wash clothes and towels.  My only other complaint about washing the dishes is that my sink is too low.  I have to do a lot of bending to get to the sink.  I need a taller sink. 

Let's kick the tires and light the fires

Where has Cas been?  I’m sure that’s what everyone has been asking.  Well, I’m about to educate yous guys on all the goings on.  Work has been crazy busy, but you already knew that.  Highlight of my work week, receiving an email from Mr. Wang on Long Dong Ave. in Beijing, true story. 
Thursday the wife to be and I went to our friend’s house for their son’s first Birthday party.  Then Opelika had their city fireworks display so we stayed and watched that. 
Friday I took Adam to the Airport so he could get back home, another failed chance for the triple play. 
Saturday we picked up Bridesmaid dresses and looked at tuxes, wedding stuff is so boring.  *It’s so worth it for the prize at the end though babe.  ;) 
Sunday we had a “connection” event at church.  We all went to the lake and mingled with each other over BBQ and games.  Somehow the event turned to kids pelting adults with water balloons and squirt guns.  After “Church” we were invited to a friend’s house to swim in their pool.  They grilled hamburgers and hotdogs, people brought deserts, FYI, if anyone wants any Banana pudding Melissa and I have a ton of it, swing on by the house and get some we’re really pushing it.  Later in the afternoon the men decided that we needed some fireworks to really celebrate the fourth.  All the guys load up and head out to find big boom.  I say all the guys, I thought I was a “guys” but apparently not.  I was like Kirk Cameron and was left behind because of the seating capacity in the car.  It wasn’t long after they left that I realized I was the only dude sitting at a table of ladies talking about ladies issues.  I have become that guy…  I’m the gay straight friend, my life is so sad.  When the men returned from the hunt … for fireworks, they wanted ice cream.  Melissa and I brought our ice cream maker so she got to mixing and I got the ice and the maker ready.  Making ice cream is innocent fun right!?  Well, not when you use your own home made perpetual vanilla made with Vodka and vanilla beans.  Something Melissa and I didn’t think of was there were some recovering alcoholics at the party.  When they heard about our Vanilla all heck broke loss.  We were being blamed for them getting back on the wagon, and for getting the kids drunk.  One party goer took the tube the ice cream was churned in and wanted to drink it like a milkshake.  Hardy har har people, that’s how vanilla extract is made.  Now Melissa and I are known as the church drunks.  You try and do something nice for people and they make you feel like “one pathetic loser”. 
I hope everyone else had as much fun on their Holiday weekend as we did.

Heluva day

Wow, so we're in the process of major upgrades here at work and it's killing us all.  A lot of long hours, extra work and blah blah blah, same thing everyone else deals with.  I thought I'd bang out a blog right quick while I'm waiting on the results from my query to populate to tell everyone that I've stopped watching the news.  The news is too depressing right now. I don't even like looking at the headlines anymore.  If it's not the economy, it's the oil in the gulf, or the war.  I just can't take it anymore.  I'm going to stick to my happy place, ignorance.  Ignorance really is bliss.  Not knowing is now my key to happiness.  Can someone come whack me in the head so I can forget all the things that I already know?  Maybe I can slip myself a roofy like in the hangover, aka "dude I lost my groom", and forget about everything that is going on right now.  Alright I'm going to try and finish up my work so maybe I can get to the field in time to sit on the bench and cheer on my teammates that get in the game.  If you need me I'll be fist bumping everyone as the walk in the dugout. 

"If you're not first you're last"  Ricky Bobby

Update on sideburns

So it appears that most people like me better with sideburns so I've started the process of growing them back.  right now I'm just growing a full beard then I'll shave off most of the beardage to be left with the sideburns that everyone knows and loves.  As a side note, I've been given more responsibilities at work so I really don't have but a few minutes of free time to type up my blogs.  I'm going to continue to try and keep everyone entered as best as I can though.  Hope everyone is as bumped as I am about the 4th coming up. 

Great Suggestion

LG suggested that I post a poll for everyone to vote on rather they like me better with or without the sideburns.  If you'll scroll down you'll see a poll on the right side of my blog.  Please vote so I'll know if I should grow them back, or keep on shaving.  I dug around and found some pictures for everyone to judge.

With sideburns:

Without:

More than just a threat

As promised, I shaved the burns off.  I didn't tell Melissa, I just went into the bathroom and did work on them.  I've already gotten two votes from some people at church that they like the sideburnless version of Cas better than the sideburned version.  Most people haven't noticed, and some have just asked me if I got a hair cut.   I forgot to take a before picture, but you can pretty much just look back any any picture of me from the past 12 years and see what they looked like.  Sorry for the crappy pictures, but this is all I have right now.  Weight in, let me know what you think.  All I know right now is that it feels pretty strange shaving so far up on my face.

Do I look younger?