I’ve had an eventful few days. Was out sick Wednesday and part of Thursday trying to get over something that had me feeling pretty rough. I think I’m on the upswing now thankfully. Friday afternoon I attended the visitation for Sommer’s parents over in Moulton. Yvette got in touch with me and we and some of her and Sommer’s co-workers met up and went together. It was good to get a chance to talk to and hug her. On my way out I ran into Kyle and Jawana only to find out that Jawana’s father is about to pass away because of a medical condition. Regardless of the circumstances - it still is a hard thing to face up to.

While I fully intended to make it an early evening, Tiffany called to say she was coming into town to hopefully get a dress for an upcoming event she’s going to. I met up with her only to find that the dress she wanted was no longer available in her size. While she was at the front desk trying to find another store that had one, she asked if I would look at some of the other dresses for anything that might look good on her. So… I’m wandering around in the dresses trying to not look overly interested and of course I run into another buddy of mine - Dwayne, a local investment broker. Meanwhile, the girl at the front desk looks at Tiffany and comments “your husband looks lost”. Tiff busts out laughing. Next thing I know, we’re in Huntsville at Phuket, a Thai restaurant having dinner. I had higher expectations of the food and was a little disappointed. I won’t write them off though. I’ll give them another try or two just in case they were having an off night. I was home by 10 so the night wasn’t too late after all.

I had a very domestic Saturday: did laundry, vacuumed around my baseboards and window sills… even vacuumed my speaker grilles on all my stereo gear in addition to all my components. Changed out some lightbulbs and cleaned toilets and tubs. Ended the evening having dinner with friends and some horrific kitchen experiences at O’Charley’s. All I gotta say is that there are some unhappy people working at that place. I’m still going to stick by my opinion that I don’t care for that restaurant much at all - and last night’s dinner confirms my thoughts. On a whiney note, my leather jacket was hanging on the back of my chair. While our waitress was talking to us, she kept her hands on the back of my chair. Guess what? I have dark grease stains on the back of my coat now where she handled it. It’s hard to have nice things sometimes. Probably going to cost me a pretty penny to have the professionally cleaned.

Today at church was unique. I was the only “regular” band member on stage today. Kevin, Brent and I think Will were in Chattanooga helping augment a worship band there at a new church similar to ours. Today’s group was made up of some good folks, we just didn’t have any time to play together as a group except for practice last Wednesday for a short time. During warm-up, I was really concerned because honestly, it sounded bad. It all came together for the most part during the actual performance but I just don’t think we came off as confidently as we could have. We had several visitors today and I hope that despite the bumpy ride, they’ll be back (since it’s really not about the music anyway, right?).

Spent the evening grilling out over at the Burns’. It was all the usual suspects plus Jordan and Evan and Megan and her daughter. We all had a relaxing evening hanging out together having good food and watching Rush Hour 2. That was a nice way to end the day.

LOST - Whoa, anybody watch LOST last Thursday? Holy smokes - this season is off to a GREAT start. I hope it keeps up. I’ve got so many ideas going now as to what’s happening. I could talk about LOST all day… and I have. I’m trying to get Anne sucked in to watching the show. I think she’d love it.

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So much for going from winter to summer. We were in the upper 80’s for highs last week and today it was in the mid 60’s with more cooler weather to come. I am thankful for the rain however. The air seemed a little easier to breathe outside instead of being so saturated with pollen. It was a windy night last night as the cool front moved through.

I spent a good part of my day out and about shooting photos for another project. I got to work with our local police department on it which proved to be interesting as well as fun. I really have a respect for what officers have to deal with on a day to day basis.

On my way home, I stopped by the church building to see what the stage was looking like. They’ve got the paint on around the stage now. It’s looking good. The instruments should really “pop” against the dark background under the stage lights. Should be nice when it’s all done.

Oh, Kevin has a dog that went MIA today. Abby, their “good” Siberian huskey looks to have taken off sometime today. I drove around while Kevin hung out his window with a spotlight looking for her. No luck. My hope is that she comes home overnight perhaps. Kevin’s going to keep in touch with our animal control department to see if she gets picked up. She has a collar on so at least people will know she belongs to someone.

LOST was good tonight. Now we know what the fence is for. I’m wondering what’s cooking with Juliet.

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Spent most of the day in anticipation of the major storms moving through the southeast. I told Arlene that just in case, I had my good underwear on in case they find me in a tree or something after the storms passed.

Thankfully, we were spared the severe stuff where I live and only got some heavy rains. That’s MUCH better. If you’ll remember, last year my house and car got pounded by hail resulting in a new roof and the repair of 30+ dents in my car. What a pain.

I have come to the conclusion that people that know how to drive are in the minority.  People just continually do stupid stuff on the road. Lots of times you can already tell beforehand that someone’s about to do something stupid.  That’s a good thing I suppose since you can at least be prepared and maybe avoid getting “involved” with them.

Watched HEROS and LOST this week. Great stuff. Both shows are back in full swing again. Hayden Pattiniere, the girl that plays Claire Bennett (the cheerleader) is awesome.  The whole cast is great but she really stands out. On LOST, this week’s episode was centered on Hurley. Good grief, they got Cheech (of Cheech & Chong fame) to play his dad. That was funny.

Band practice was tonight - got a complaint from someone that we were too loud. Awesome.

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I guess it will be at least another day before I can get my “World’s Greatest Uncle” shirt out of the bag. Still nothing going on with my sis yet although that could change at any moment.

Today for lunch, a group of us tried the new mexican restaurant in town, Maria Bonita. They opened last Friday after almost 2 years of not opening their doors even though the place was ready. The restaurant is located in what used to be Court Street Cafe. Many years ago I used to go there and enjoy their chicken tenders. They’ve done a nice job with the interior - it feels much more upscale than most other places in town. It actually has the feel of a “big city” eatery rather than your run of the mill taco stand. I had the spaghetti for lunch. You heard right, spaghetti at a mexican place. It was decent. The marinara sauce had a distinct citrus flavor to it which I found unusual but pleasing. I did have to request some garlic toast as that’s what was missing from making it a complete dish for me. I hear the dinner menu is quite different. I’ll have to give that a try sometime soon.

I did get a chance to watch HEROS tonight. I think this episode had the most action in it so far. Plenty of things going on. Anyone else watch it?

LOST comes on tomorrow where they say they’ll “reveal 3 secrets of the island”. I can hardly wait.

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Man oh man… LOST was way out there tonight! Tonight’s episode was about Desmond. I think what we saw was a lot of insight into his background just like Juliet’s from last week. The major difference though was the time travel aspect. I’ll reserve commenting on that here till later this week so as not to spoil it for any Tivo people out there that visit here.

More cold today. It’s 25 out now on its way down to the teens later tonight. Kelsey is inside as she always is when the temps dip below freezing. She’s a good dog - comes inside and goes straight to my spare bathroom and lies down for the night. In the morning she heads straight for the door to the back yard. We’ve got a routine.  :cool:

On the church front, we’ve got lots going on from the technology side. For us in the band, we’ve jumped from a 16 channel mixer to a 32 channel unit. Now we can accommodate all the connections we have and still have extras. The biggest bonus though is we have another in-ear mix to send out! I’ve always had my own in-ear mix and transmitter - the extra-fly Shure PSM600. The other members of the band shared their own mix. The problem with sharing though is not everyone has the needs or tastes in what they hear when performing. Vocalists need more of their voices and the voices of other they need to harmonize with and instrumentalists have different need depending on what they’re doing. For example, as a drummer, I personally want to hear some of my drums, a good bit of the bass guitar (since we need to stay together most of the time) and some of the lead guitars and a good bit of Kevin’s vocals so I know where we are in the song or where we’re going if we’re drawing an ending out or something. Now there are more mixes to choose from to give more flexibility in tailoring the sound as needed.

Ok, I realize that not too many people will find the paragraph above very interesting. I was just all excited about it and wanted to share.

That’s it for now.

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LOST cranked up again tonight after being on hiatus since November. That SUCKS when you’re addicted to a show. Tonight’s episode got me sucked right back in again. Unfortunately, I’ve been spoiled with the DVD’s from Seasons 1 & 2. I can’t just play the next episode, I have to go back to waiting a week. Grrr…

Anyone reading this a LOST fanatic?

Since weather is a hot topic for discussion these past few days,  we managed to have some sunshine. I actually needed some sunglasses today when I drove over to Huntsville to drop off a CD to a client. Kevin said you could almost wear shorts today. I’m not as “insulated” as Kev so I don’t think shorts would have worked for me despite the face it was pretty warm today in comparison.

In the fashion world, I wore a pair of Banana Republic chinos in the same size as those pants I was complaining about yesterday. Length was perfect, waist was a smidge more than I would like, but it was comfortable.

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This morning I was all set to wear a new pair of slacks I bought a few weeks ago. It’s the same brand of pants that I have another pair of that I really liked. It’s also the same size. When I was getting dressed, I put them on and guess what? They were about an inch TOO SHORT!?! What is the dang deal with that? If I wanted capri pants*, I’d have other issues I need to address. Thankfully, I had another pair of pants that worked with what I already had on so it wasn’t as big a deal as it could have been I suppose. Now I have to deal with exchanging or returning them. Grrr….

I watched last night’s episode of HEROS tonight. I straight up old-school taped it since I don’t have a DVR yet. My VCR is Super-VHS though so at least the video quality is good. Anyone watch it? If you did, did you see the license plate on Hiro’s fathers’ (George Takei aka Mr. Sulu) car? It was NCC-1701… that was a nice touch. If you don’t know the significance of that series of letters and numbers don’t worry about it though.

LOST gets cranked up tomorrow night. I have big plans to be in couch potato mode.

Had a heat wave today. I think it got up in the 50’s this afternoon.

*how do I know what capri pants are? in the olden days of yore, I was in management for a fashion chain - mens clothing, shoes, ladies sportswear and juniors were all departments I managed at one time or another.

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