Today, at church, we had about 20-people show up for a cleaning-slash-inventory-taking day. It was amazing.

I’m pretty sure we threw away enough stuff today to start a new church somewhere else!

Seriously, we rented a 20-yard dumpster and had it placed outside of a set of double doors. All day long we pitched stuff! It was awesome!

I “exploded” an old overhead projector when I tried to do just that by throwing it as hard as humanly possible into the dumpster.

One word: wow.

I also did a little dumpster-diving and found a still-charged fire extinguisher which was just BEGGING me to “pull the pin” and put out the imaginary fire that surely “could have” been burning in the dumpster. I put out that “imaginary fire” and some others throughout the numerous snow-piles surrounding the dumpster.

I love my job!

I also managed to get a guy to help me take apart a throw-away item that had some useful items in it. What is this item, you ask? An old slide projector. What useful items are found inside of slide projectors?

Lenses.

What is it about a piece of glass that weighs more than my hand that intrigues me so?

I have no idea, but I own 4 of them now. And they are sweet. And by sweet I mean – totally awesome.

Look out “Ants of America” – I’m coming to a city near you, Spring 2005! Seriously, I think I’ll throw an ant-burning party!

On another note, as the snow melts, the snowmobile tracks become more evident – they are the only grass-showing tracks around town, and they travel through nearly every person’s yard on my way to-and-from work everyday.

I know I should be “happy” for Mr. Snowmobile owner. I should be glad that he is able to buy a snowmobile, and ride it through the yards that I pass in my 4-door Neon everyday. I should be gleeful, even that he can jump piles of snow and amaze friends and family with his snowmobiling abilities.

But for some reason the only thoughts that go through my head is how to install some sort of a “clothesline” that would jump out of the snow as he passes my apartment on his snowmobile, sending him “miles” into the air and off of his beloved snow-machine.

There is definitely something wrong with my brain.

Aren’t we the coolest?

Happy birthday to my wonderful wife yesterday!

I got her some sweet flowers, took her to dinner at Olive Garden and we both got these awesome cell phones!

What a great day!

While in South Carolina for Christmas, we did not have the benefit of a typical Indiana “White Christmas”. Today, however, we woke up to the wonderful whiteness in Bluffton, Indiana during our “Garrett Family Christmas”!

Pretty, huh?!
After enjoying some of the white-scenery and being the first to wake up and get ready, it was time to open presents with the family.

Rich (brother-in-law) and I both received the Lord Of The Rings: Return of the King extended version DVD from Mom and Dad Garrett, along with some sweet zip-hoodies and of course, pajamas!

Rich and I couldn’t help but notice a sweet scarf that we just HAD to try for ourselves:

Don’t we look fabulous?
Of course a Garrett-family photo was taken and here are the “orginal” Garretts:



We left Mom and Dad Garrett’s sometime after 2 and did some “around-town” visiting. We even got to stop in and visit a bit with “Uncle Matt and Aunt Melanie” who were temporarily housing Great-Grandma Payne:

Next stop was “Uncle Brett and Aunt Jodi’s” and then an across-town hunt for Uncle Brett and the girls who were “sledding”. Sledding in Indiana doesn’t usually include any hills, though it DOES include a 4-wheeler and a “train” of sleds attached! Incredible.
After our time in Bluffton, we jumped back on the road to Ft. Wayne for an evening with the Pates. Wes and Ellen met us at Old Navy and our evening included shopping, a movie (“Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events”), dinner at Logan’s Roadhouse, and a drink at Starbucks.

We always enjoy our “evenings with the Pates”. Tonight was no different.

When we arrived back in Warsaw, we were warned that Warsaw, too had been snowed upon.

That was no joke.

before.


after.
It was a fun-filled weekend in Bluffton/Ft. Wayne. It’s good to be back and good to be tired.

Big day tomorrow. Go Colts!

The “One For All Universal Remote URC 8810” is an incredible $20 purchase from Wal-Mart.

Craig Helfrich purchased this remote from Wal-Mart and it has been nothing short of a “miracle worker” in their home! What was a fiasco of looking for the right remote (DVD, Satellite, TV, Receiver, OTHER Satellite, etc.) is now a “pick it up and go” situation with this one single remote.

The URC 8810 allows for up to 8 input devices to be controlled by one remote!

The package claims that this remote contains the most inclusive Infra Red Code library and that proved true as every single device we set up in the Helfrich home was either listed in the handbook or found through a simple “search feature” on the remote itself.

One problem we found was that with Craig’s ONKYO receiver, we couldn’t switch to the DVD inputs, though we could change to all of the other inputs with the remote. This was going to be a problem until we read about the “learning” feature of the remote. Through this feature, we were actually able to “teach” the new remote to switch to the DVD inputs by programing it to learn how the “old” remote performed this function! Incredible.

For a guy who LOVES technology and is always trying to stay immersed in the latest/greatest, this remote blew me away!

Check it out on One For All’s website here.