Eh

I don't really have much to blog about this morning. It's been a pretty standard week so far and we don't really have much of anything planned for the weekend. DeAnne's planning on attacking the remaining bushes that we want to take down and then I've got to dig up the roots, cut grass and we'll need to get started redoing the area where the bushes used to be, so if the weather allows, it'll definitely be a lawn-care weekend, but outside of that we don't have much else at the moment.

The children's choir is doing their spring musical Sunday and practice for that is going to be Saturday morning. I got to hear most of it last Sunday when they did their first in-sanctuary practice and it looks like it's going to be as cute as ever. They always do a great job. It's a little more stressful on the sound crew, but we usually always learn something new in the process, so that's the good thing about it.

It's hard to believe that April's already over with. The year seems to really be flying by. I'm just a few weeks away from my birthday. I'll be turning 29 this year and it's starting to blow me away. It doesn't really bother me in so much as it's just mind-boggling that I've already reached the end of my 20's. Where has the time gone? Also, I don't really "feel" like I should be this close to 20. I'm sure that if you asked someone, they would tell you that I look my age, but I don't really feel like I look my age. I'm probably not making any sense anymore so I'm just going to stop.

Have a good weekend and I'll see you back on Tuesday.

--Paul

Bye, Bye Bushes

Something happened to some of our gardenia bushes. I don't know if it was a disease, a pest or if we just cut them back too hard last year but the bushes on the side of the house have started to die off. So on Saturday DeAnne and I started finishing them off. It's strange looking at the house and half of them being gone but it will probably be stranger to see them all gone when we get finished pulling them up.

So that was our Saturday project that we did in between the rain we got that morning and the rain starting again that afternoon. Other than that, we just took it easy. I need to get the grass cut but I guess that's going to have to wait until this weekend. It was too wet Saturday and I just couldn't bring myself to do in between church services on Sunday.

The only other thing really happening is that I finished the "Percy Jackson" series of books. They were fun books. Not religiously sound in any way, shape or form, but neither is most any novel that's set in a fantasy realm. The Greeks were nothing, however, if not imaginative and Rick Riordan ran with that and came up with a series of books that are great fun from start to finish. I just wish now that they had taken better care with making a movie from the first book. I'm not sure that after the sub-par quality of the first movie, they'll be making any more and that's a shame, because the last couple of books would make for incredible summer movies.

See you on Thursday.

--Paul

Titleless

I'm starting to struggle with blog titles again. I may have to go back to using song titles or something. We'll see.

Not much going on and not much planned for the weekend. I need to cut the grass but it looks like it's going to be raining Saturday. Of course, at this point, rain isn't necessarily a bad thing. What grass we do have is starting to look pretty fried.

I just realized that summer must really be coming. I'm starting to gripe about the yard. Sorry.

Of course, summer coming also means that big movies are coming. The biggest for me is probably going to be Iron Man 2. There's also Robin Hood which looks a little like Gladiator in the woods, but even if it is, then it's probably still going to be awesome. Then there's Shrek Forever After, Prince of Persia, Toy Story 3, Jonah Hex, The Last Airbender and what's sure to be the summer's 800 lb gorilla: Eclipse. Probably not as good as last year but still, enough that we should be able to keep ourselves occupied if we're looking for a movie to go see.

I'm out of time for today. It took me a little while to run through the upcoming list on IMDB. Have a good weekend and I'll see you on Tuesday.

--Paul

Curb-side Pickup

After nearly 5 years of marriage and for me, living in this house for nearly 17 years, we now have a mailbox. I know, it's a momentous event. DeAnne's tried her best since before we got married even to get me to put up a mailbox and I guess it just took her this long to wear me down. We never put one up because my parents had a post office box and when they bought the house, Dad had an argument with the carrier on our route at the time about getting an address for the house. This was before E911, so the carrier assigned an address but she wouldn't give one to Dad until he put a box up. The thing was that they needed it that day because they were closing on the house. In the end, they were still able to close and Dad never put up a mailbox. DeAnne and I have just been sharing the p.o. box with Dad since we got married. Amazing, I know.

So getting the stuff to put up a mailbox was part of our Saturday. The other part was watching the Auburn A-Day game over at Bryan and Adrienne's house. We watched the game and then grilled out and had a nice afternoon and evening.

Sunday was good too. Bro. Matt preached on one of DeAnne's favorite stories, the donkey that talked to Balaam. After morning services, we went to Kinston for lunch. Another first for the weekend: I changed a wet diaper. It was scary and DeAnne said that it was a miracle that I didn't get peed on, but I got the job done and I'm not sure that either me or Liam were any better for it. I think it's going to be a while before I tackle a stinky.

See you on Thursday.

--Paul

Waiting...

The Gears of War 3 trailer is wonderful. It's everything Gears should be and that's exactly what I was hoping for. The only problem is that the game isn't going to come out until April of next year. Hopefully this keeps them from delaying the game. They could easily have announced it for fall and then if they didn't get done in time, pushed it back, but that would have upset everyone. Maybe this way, they're definitely giving themselves enough time to get it done before release. Microsoft also probably wanted them to avoid the holidays this year so that they could push Project Natal for all it's worth. So I understand why it's going to be April of next year before we get our hands on this game, but that doesn't make the waiting any easier.

Glee started back this week. It's probably not as good a show as I like to imagine it is, but for some reason I can't tear myself away. That's probably the definition of a show that's a "guilty pleasure".

No major plans for the weekend. Auburn's A-Day game is Saturday and they're showing it on ESPN-U, so we have plans to watch that with Bryan and Adrienne but outside of that, there's not much else. There's some things that need doing around the house, so I'll probably find myself doing those. I also have to decide when I'm going to cut the grass again.

At any rate, have a good weekend and I'll see you back here on Tuesday.

--Paul

Speechless

Last night's 24 has left me pretty much speechless. I'm not sure I remember the last time an episode blew me away like last night's did. And that's the week after the big two hour, middle of the season, shocker event that they always do. Usually the week after that is a down week. I guess with only so many episodes left, they decided to do everything they could to surprise everyone. If the next six episodes are like last nights, they could really send this show out with a bang.

We had a good weekend. We spent some time with MeMaw on Friday night and then stopped by on Sunday to see her one last time before she went home. Saturday and part of Sunday were filled with Sarah coming home and loving on my new nephew, Liam. Everyone's been trying to get their turn with him, so I haven't got to hold him much, but Sarah's going to be in Alabama for a little while, so I'm sure I'll get more time with him soon. School is out this week, so DeAnne's already been over in Kinston all day yesterday watching the little guy. I imagine that that's probably going to be the case all week.

And that's about all I've got. Gears of War 3 was announced last night on Jimmy Fallon's show but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, so look for talk about that on Thursday. I'm pretty excited. It's a Gears game, so that alone is enough to get me excited.

See you on Thursday.

--Paul

Working For the Weekend

For whatever reason, it's been a pretty long week so I'm looking forward to the weekend.

Today Apple is holding a press conference to show off what the next version of the iPhone OS is going to be like. As I'm sure you all can tell by now, I've become one of the true Apple faithful so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they're going to be talking about. I may not have an iPhone, but the iPod Touch runs the same software, so whatever they're doing, I'll get to some extent on my iPod.

We're slowly catching up on shows that DeAnne missed while she was gone. We finally managed to get up to speed on American Idol last night. As far as I'm concerned, they could just send everyone home except for Casey and Crystal and let those two just duke it out for the next eight weeks. It'd be a better show than having to watch them whittle it down to just those two anyway. And what's up with using the save on Michael? He's a nice guy and I like him as far as a person, but I'm not wild about his singing ability. Now that they've used the save on him, if something crazy happens they can't save anyone. Oh well, I guess the judges are just betting that the votes will go the right way from here on out.

That's about all I've got for today. Have a good weekend and I'll see you on Tuesday.

--Paul

What To Say?

We had a good, if hectic, weekend. Friday night we went out to eat with DeAnne's family for her Uncle Mike's birthday. MeMaw also came in to town on Friday, so on Saturday we went over to Dad's and hung out and ate dinner with them. Sunday was Easter, so we had church all morning and then lunch with DeAnne's family, Easter egg hunt after lunch and then dinner at Dad's again. In between we managed to squeeze in a trip to Wal-Mart and Winn-Dixie and get a pile of laundry done. It was pretty wild, but like I said, it was good.

Saturday also marked the launch of Apple's iPad. I've already expressed my feelings for the slate back when they first announced it. I'm still in a wait and see mode. I would really love to see one in person but I guess I'll have to wait for that. Reviews have been pretty positive though, so I'm thinking that the second generation device is probably going to be compelling enough to really get its claws into me.

Apple sent out invitations to the press yesterday for a meeting that looks like it's going to be about iPhone OS 4. The iPhone OS of course also runs the iPod Touch and the iPad, so it'll be interesting to see what new features they have to offer in the latest version and how they translate between the different hardware platforms.

I'm not sure if the writers on 24 knew that the show was being canceled when they wrote last night's two hours, but either way, that was probably the best two hours of the season so far. It was just classic, old school, adrenaline rush 24 and I loved pretty much every minute of it. We've only got a few more hours to go till the end. I'm hoping and betting that these are going to be some pretty wild episodes coming up.

I'll see y0u on Thursday.

--Paul

She's Back!

DeAnne finally came home! Her flight was right on time Tuesday night and we finally got back to the house around 11:15. It's been great having her back. The animals were all pretty excited, Emma especially. I thought Emma might have a stroke she was so wound up.

I do feel somewhat sorry for DeAnne though. She's not been back 48 hours and already the pollen is killing her. I though she might have missed the worst of it, but with no significant rain the past week or so, the pollen has gotten a lot worse.

It's Easter weekend. We don't have any plans to go out of town this year. I'll be helping with the sound and video for our church's cantata. This is the first Easter that we've had the projectors so I think all of us in the A/V crew are a little nervous. I'm sure everything will go well. It should make for a pretty awesome service.

I didn't mention it Tuesday, but in a bit of sad news, 24 has been canceled. It wasn't totally unexpected, but it still bums me out. The one ray of light is that they're going to start work on a movie. I guess they'll have to suspend the real-time aspect of the show for the movie, but they don't always stick to it on the show either, so I guess it won't be a huge stretch. I'm looking forward to the movie though. It should be interesting to see what they can do with a movie sized budget and only having to get two or three hours out of the money instead of 24.

Have a good weekend and a happy Easter.

--Paul