Ahhhh... what a weekend. Probably the most time I've spent away from a plasma flip-top screen on a weekend in quite a while.

Friday was a good day in spite of it everything else that week. I finally got the titanium replaced with a new logic board so now my firewire port works again. Huhray! Earlier that morning I sent the final production files for this years fun run shirt to mr glenn and checked-off one less thing to do. Jeff called around 4:30 and invited me to the stars game -- ironic considering I invited him to the first of the season and he invited me for the last. The stars played for nothing more than what little pride they had left knocking off chicago 3-1. No playoffs this year for my boys. During the game I managed to drink a little too much and ended up paying for it later with a huge headache on saturday morning. Ugh.

Jessie and I made plans earlier in the week to do something about my overrun flowerbeds in front of the house. I picked her up around ten and we made a trip to home depot in the colony to stock up on supplies. Flowers, plants, shovels, trimmers, mulch and stones set me back about $200 -- there goes my disposable income for the next two weeks. Of course, no sooner had we unloaded the car and turned the soil inside out did we get our usual weekend downpour. Man, was I pissed... I called it, too -- freedom to do something outside and mother nature won't let you. We left everything outside hoping it would soon pass, but after an hour of constant rainfall we opted for a movie instead. Panic Room is by no means david fincher's finest work (that would be seven or fight club), but it was a pretty good movie.

The sun decided to pop out later in the afternoon, so we trounced in the mud to see what we could do. I got up on the roof to prune my reclusive butthole neighbor's tree that was inviting carpenter ants onto my roof. A few clips here and there did the trick. On the ground, the soil I turned before the rain was way too muddy to plant anything just yet, but some of the undisturbed earth wasn't too soggy. We planted a variety of salvias, tigerlilies, iceplants and other assorted greenery dotting the perimeter with something other than weeds for a change. By saturday evening it was already looking 300% better than before. We called it a day for dinner at big bowl and made it a blockbuster night with a late night screening of training day. Damn good movie.

This morning I got a real nice surprise when my battery decided to commit suicide overnight sometime. Todd came over and gave me a jump so I could get to wal-mart and replace the battery. Of course, no sooner had a bought a battery, taken out the old one out and replaced the new one did I realize I bought the wrong kind. As luck would have it wal-mart didn't carry a battery for a nissan altima -- why, I don't know. Autozone did. And it was twice the cost of the other one, but after all the hell I went through that morning I would have paid triple just to be done with it. Stupid car.

My green-thumbed companion came back over around lunch and we made a little more headway on the landscaping experiment. I set some retaining stones around the sidewalk to keep the soil from leaking onto the concrete like it's does every time it rains. The front of the flower bed was still too wet to plant, so we'll try and finish that up sometime this week. A few bags of cypress mulch to cover the soil and things were looking pretty sharp.

Ahhhh... what a weekend.

I suck. My students are pissed at me and I'm a disappointment to everyone this week. Tomorrow is a new day. Until then I'm not going to worry about it...

Seems like it rains every damn weekend in april. It did that last year, too... beautiful weather while you're stuck inside an office building and complete doo-doo when you're free to do whatever you want. This weekend's downpour cancelled many a weekend plans including the big race on sunday.

Friday, the creative crew (sans dave) went back to club schmitz for a return engagement and a good old fashioned drinking session.. Although not quite as beer intensive as last, we did manage to put away a few pitchers with relative ease and make light of situations that might not be so light otherwise. Justin of course had the biggest revelation of the night, while jim once again succeeded in being the most photogenic boss I've ever worked with as seen here. And here... And here... And especially here... (excuse me while I duck for cover).

I mowed the lawn just in time before the rain fell on saturday. The parents came down soon after and we made a trip to over to central market in plano. They were every impressed with the place. Later, Jessie came over and the seven of us went to Mimi's cafe for dinner. I really like mimi's, but if you ever go, don't order the chicken fried steak.... After a quick stop at borders books we caught a late showing of "big trouble" -- the latest tim allen comedy directed by barry sondehiem. I think we both would've enjoyed it even more if we weren't so tired.

Sunday's race was cancelled from the rain, so I managed to get a few things done around the house and spent some time with my parents who were stuck in north texas for at least another day waiting on the weather to clear up. The rain continued to fall into the night.

Monday, I woke up and got ready to get my race on. The NASCAR experience needs more time to tell you than I've got right now...

Sometimes you can be both unlucky and lucky at the same time. Wednesday morning was a perfect example of such circumstance.

While cruising down denton tap on the way to work, I passed by a coppell piggie sitting in the left turn lane at sandy lake rd. For those of you who've never had the joy of cruising through coppell, the police drive these big honker SUV chevy tahoes -- perfectly suitable for driving the rough roads in front of the million-dollar homes of dallas cowboys. Whatever. Anyway, I passed by in the left hand lane going the opposite direction and was a good mile or so down the road when I saw him haul ass behind me. I knew exactly what he was after -- my long expired registration tags. I pulled over into the post office parking lot. Unlucky me.

After making the mistake of stepping out of my car -- my dad always taught me to step out when an officer pulls you over as it shows honesty; nowadays, they want you to stay put and are usually a dick about it, too. To make a long story short, he asked me why my tags were out and I was honest with him when I told him I didn't really have a reason beyond not really knowing where to begin. I hoped he would be helpful about the situation and let me off with a warning and tell me what I need to do instead of writing me a ticket. When he retreated to his "urban assault vehicle" and started writing a lengthy report (he was in there a good 3 or 4 minutes), I knew I was screwed.

Suddenly, as if there were a giant donut running loose with an uzi in the post office parking lot, he jumped from his gas guzzler and ran to my window with my license and registration in hand. He pushed them off to me in a rush saying, "today's your lucky day" and speed off with lights spinning and tires squealing. I figure he either had to rush off to an accident or his lieutenant needed that bear claw -- STAT. Either way, I caught a break. I drove to work determined to take care of my registration and avoid pushing my luck in the future. Lucky me.

I've spent most of this week getting back to my old habits of working out every morning and eating small meals several times a day in an effort to get back into the shape I was in before winter set in. Not that I've blubbed out or anything, but I'd like to shed my winter coat in time for summer. I feel a lot better when I do, too. I've done pretty well in getting back to old habits, but yesterday I discovered something that boggled my mind...

Anyone who knows me well probably knows about my recent dabbling into starbucks. I like their coffee and muffins. The combination of the two are a good kick-start in the morning when there's an early meeting or weekends hangovers. I don't do starbucks everyday, but for awhile there, when it was really cold, I found myself there a little more often than I should have.

Since there was an early meeting yesterday and the lingering cold was still in the air, I decided to forget about my nutrition plan for 5 minutes and make a pit stop at starbucks. I wanted coffee and a muffin, dammit. While ordering, I curiously asked if they had the nutritional breakdown of their pastries and such. The lady handed me a huge binder full of documents and thumbed through it to the "banana nut muffin" page. I looked in horror to find my beloved muffins carry a whopping 63 grams of fat. 63 grams of fat. That's about the same amount of fat found in two big macs. Good God. No wonder. I ate the last one with disgust and vowed to never again order a banana nut muffin from starbucks.

Today the schmitz lounge is calling again and we'll venture back to the land of beehive hairdos and greasy burgers for a few beers. Hopefully justin won't ask for a cape cod this time -- I don't want to get my ass kicked.

Everyone do a "anti-rain dance" for the big race on sunday...

After over a month of hard work (or lack thereof, depending on the student). my students turned in their annual reports last night in class. I was pleased overall with their work. As with most classroom environments, there were a few shining stars that shone above the rest, but I couldn't ask for a better result as a whole. I'll spend the next week checking each board and digital files from respective students to ensure they followed instructions. I hope I won't have to be a hardass on account of people not following procedure...

After class, I stopped of at jen's and returned a kennel they lent me back when maddie was a puppy. They had company, but cullen was in a great mood and I got to play with him for a little while. In an effort to get him to say "jon-jon" (I've been donned the title uncle jon-jon...) I found a good way to get his attention is to give him the old "heave-ho" in the air and then ask him to say something. Seems a throw in the air keeps his attention span going when he gets a fun ride. He didn't quite blurt it out, but it wasn't for a lack of trying... I'll have him saying it by the weekend when my parents come up. :)

Jessie came back from h-town last night (finally). I'm glad she's back. :) Too bad she has to jump right back into work -- there's a lot going on today.

In world news, I'm thoroughly convinced the middle east is going to blow itself up in a fiery hell in a month or two... I wonder what'll be left over. Hopefully they'll put in a nice golf course or something for all the sane people in the world to enjoy. I'm just tired of hearing about all the crap over there -- it's depressing.

Seeing one of these guys at local diner yesterday brought up this site for discussion again... I thought I'd pass on along the link for others outside the work circle. Proof that too many people have too much time on their hands. :) Enjoy.