Tonight was Warsaw Wesleyan’s first-ever “Trunk ‘N Treat” Halloween alternative celebration. 25 vehicles circled up, filled their trunks full of candy, we gave a Gospel presentation and kids went home with enough candy to keep 20 dentists in business! Our trunks were to be “decorated” as we saw fit. Our decoration theme? “Winter in Montana (plus an igloo)”

Here’s our little Eskimo in her wintery-bliss.

Now, my thoughts on Halloween.

#1 – I’m very thankful that my parents took us Trick-or-Treating as kids. I have some great family memories of being dressed in stupid costumes and receiving incredible amounts of free candy from my neighbors. (one of those memories includes dragging my little sister, Sherilyn, around the neighborhood in my wagon in her JOY Dish Detergent bottle costume – which I’m pretty sure was a display from a grocery store that my mom asked for and retro-fitted to make into a Halloween costume)

#2 – I am also glad that I was a part of “Harvest Parties” or whatever the local church we were at called them – where we did “alternatives to trick-or-treating”. I have fond memories of dressing up as a mummy and saying I was “Lazarus” because it was a church-event.

#3 – I was very glad to be a part of a church that offered a safe alternative to the average trick-or-treating that took place in our town tonight.

#4 – When Ella is old enough, I look forward to taking her trick-or-treating on the only opportunity each year when our neighbors will willingly open their front doors and hand her gobs of free candy for her to share with her father.

#5 – The Sheets family will never be displaying “gory” or “evil” items as “decorations” during this time of year. We will always roll our eyes at the neighbor who buys hundreds of dollars worth of Halloween decorations and wonder what it is they’re celebrating and will double-visit their house if they have good candy.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, my next laptop:

Some geeky-specs:
– Intel® Coreâ„¢ 2 Duo processor T7200 (4MB Cache/2.00GHz/667MHz FSB)
– 15.4 inch UltraSharpâ„¢ Wide Screen WXGA+ Display with TrueLifeâ„¢
– 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
– 256MB ATI MOBILITYâ„¢ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemoryâ„¢
– 120GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
– 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
– 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
– Windows XP Professionalâ„¢ with upgrade to Windows Vistaâ„¢ when released

Current ship-date is Nov. 16th – too long to wait for my ADD, but I will do my best. Now I just need to find all of my software disks and get ready for the new machine!

#1 reason for going with Dell?
A 30%-off coupon that was good through Nov. 3rd.

#2 reason for going with Dell?
I have loved each of my Dell desktop computers.

#1 reason for going with PC and not a Mac?
Software. I would’ve had to buy Windows OS to put onto an already over-priced Mac OR purchased Mac-versions of the software I do currently run.

#1 reason for going with Dell instead of HP?
I have always trusted Dell’s name over HP. I have never had trouble with Dell’s tech/hardware support.

What do you get when you cross a twenty-seven-year-old new father, a jam-packed Saturday, an admitted high-stress job, and not-enough sleep?

A big fat migraine.

This morning just after 2AM, I woke up with that “swimming feeling” in my head. I got out of bed, asked Jess to pray for me and made it to the bathroom in time to relinquish Friday’s lunch and supper.

I went to bed with merely a headache and awoke at that 2 o’clock hour with a full-blown migraine. Yuck.

Jess graciously accommodated my migraine stupor and left me in the darkened bedroom while she suffered on the couch – what a wife! It’s nearly Sunday morning now and the headache is nearly gone – the worst part is well gone.

I did call my migraine-prone father and sarcastically thanked him for the migraine-gene. He instantly felt my pain.

I bought my current HP laptop on January 14, 2004. It’s served me very well, but is finally begging me to be “put to rest” (or put on eBay). I haven’t been able to charge the battery from the power cord for almost 2-years, the hard drive is making some insane noises, and as we all know, computer technology has sure changed in almost 3-years that I’ve owned this machine.

So I’m looking at this guy:

It would be QUITE the upgrade from the current notebook’s specs, but I want some stevansheets.com readership input. (Kory, this doesn’t mean you need to remind me that macs are better…)

I know there are stevansheets.com readers that I don’t even know who may have an opinion on me purchasing another HP notebook – and I want to hear from any and all who may have an opinion.

A couple things I want to be sure and do with my new notebook:
– use as my primary computer (my portable desktop machine)
– use MediaShout (and be able use it well)
– get into MORE video editing (ie. purchase AfterEffects and start playing)
– store my music library

So, what do you think? Please share your thoughts.