Les Stroud, the “Survivorman” goes on these 7-day expeditions where he survives off the land.

Tonight’s episode was quite exciting – he was dropped with only his bicycle in the remote Utah desserts. He quickly stabbed one of the tires on the bike to get started and quickly dismantled the bike to use it for survival.

What’s most interesting about this show is that he is the only star. He carries over 50lbs of camera gear with him into these situations, sets up his own camera shots and even hikes away from the camera and back towards it – just to get some good footage for the show.

I also just learned on his website that he moved his family to an “off the grid” dwelling that uses only solar power and even rain-harvesting systems. How cool is that?

I wish I had TIVO so that I could be sure to catch every episode of Survivorman.

On another note, I’m so glad to be an adult!

I realized tonight that I can eat a half-package of Milano cookies and can’t get in trouble for it. (Milano cookies were “Mom’s cookies” and thus off-limits to the Sheets kids as we grew up!)

The leaves in the Sheets yard have been obliterated.

Sure, I could’ve raked them into a huge pile and allowed the city’s sucker-machine come and suck ’em up, but I opted for “recycling”.

Yep, our yard has been officially “nutrient-ed” by recycling leaves (in small bits after being obliterated by the lawn mower) back into itself.

It was a fun job.

I also hung our bicycles from the garage ceiling, threw away some junk, and put in one of those fancy tennis balls hanging from the ceiling to know how far to pull our now lonely vehicle into the carport.

It has been a good day.

Tomorrow I will enjoy the ribbon cutting ceremony at the opening of the new Tree of Life bookstore in Winona Lake.

I should also admit that now that Ella is 6-months old, the picture-a-day idea has officially become the picture-every-once-in-a-while idea (ellasheets.com) and I hope you’ll forgive me for getting your hopes up.

The Neon is “officially” dead to the Sheets family.

We’re hoping someone else will want it for a few hundred bucks and that they, in turn, will fix it and resell it themselves.

So, wanna buy my Neon?

It needs a new starter, to get it out of the parking lot, and some other stuff I’m sure.

Pray for us as we try the one-car family situation again for a while (a long while, more than likely).

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.