Tonight was supposed to be a cooked-dinner and a rented movie night.

I’m glad our plans changed.

I took my wife to Goshen tonight to one of our favorite restaurants – Backyard Barbeque. Yummy.

After supper, we hit up the local “Teacher Store” and then Sams Club where we picked up bulk necessities – and a copy of Napoleon Dynamite for my sister in Bosnia!

After Sams it was back on the road towards Warsaw, but we first stopped at a music store where I checked to see if the had Napoleon Dynamite – the soundtrack.

Nope. That’s 5 nopes this week.
Walmart #1 – nope; K-mart – nope; Sam Goody – nope; Walmart #2 – nope; random music store – nope

It hurts my feelings that I can’t get that 42-track cd ANYWHERE! Do I REALLY have to get to Ft. Wayne to get this soundtrack?

After music store denial, we headed to a little coffee shop in Goshen where we picked up a hot drink. We caught word of a new small bookstore that opened tonight in the downtown district, so we walked down the street to that shop. Neat place. Typical “old-school bookstore” feel. We didn’t stay long.

I’m excited about sleeping in tomorrow.

If you’re not living in Indiana, you won’t understand this next sentence…

Anyone wanna help me build an ark?

I gave blood on Tuesday.

I give blood EVERY second-Tuesday of the month. It’s one of those “nice things” that I do.

I got THAT from my dad, too!

I arrived on time and was immediately put through the question-answer time that I enjoy so much (sarcasm).

Well, after the question-answer time, I was again asked “left or right” and like usual, answered “left, please”.

I was directed to some nurse’s station and sat and waited for her to push a needle through my arm and take a pint of my blood.

She was proud to exclaim to me that this time would be my one-gallon mark since moving to Warsaw (when I started keeping track of how much blood I donated). I smiled and settled in to my too-short chair waiting for her to stick me with the mile-long needle.

When the needle-stick time comes each month, I like to watch. Weird? Sure, but something about it intrigues me.

I watched, as usual, this time and noticed that she missed. The needle went in, but no blood flowed. I knew we were in for another poke. She moved the needle a bit and found Mr. Vein and blood flowed.

What I’ve come to realize about giving blood is that when they “miss” the first time, I get this really sweet bruise on my arm. I actually look forward to this bruise, because of the leverage it gives me in my various areas of life!

So, for your viewing pleasure – the bruise, 4-days later!

I’m pretty sure I’ve inhereted my dad’s ability to get nasty headaches when he’s relaxed.

I’ve got a killer headache that may drive me to Nyquil if it doesn’t subside quickly…

Today, Thursday, is my day off. I made sure to make it just that. I slept in a bit, took a nap, surfed the web, ate some lunch, and did some television-watching.

Jess got home early this afternoon, thus our television-watching became my favorite: “let’s see what’s on the Food Network”. (sarcasm)

I drove Jess to the church for her Wee-Care board meeting and then headed to Craig’s. The snow WAS pretty awesome, but has now stopped coming down – which has me pretty upset.

Honestly, I want more snow!

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.