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Back home now, from a weekend in Tuscaloosa visiting Amanda’s Mom and Dad. We had planned to come back home Sat. night, but Brandon fell asleep on the way back to my Mom and Dad’s, where we had spent the night Friday. He was so exhausted I didn’t have the heart to wake him up. So we stayed another night. I think I’m going to go fall into bed now…

Now I’m not going to say that it was wet here today, but the only animals that I saw were moving in pairs. At least no one was out canoing in the creek behind the office today.

A dreary, depressing day to cap off a dreary, depressing 24 hours.

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. - 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

Do I even have to say it? Cancer sucks.

I think I’ll go… I don’t know.

An update to yesterday’s story about the Cardens…

They, along with the rest of the school, have been evacuated by French troops.

(Great. Now I might feel a twinge of guilt everytime I bash the French.)

(Figuratively speaking, that is)

Just when you thought you’d seen it all… Deep-Fried Twinkies.

(Courtesy of former work-mate, Tim Hall).

Ever read anything in the news, and then not been able to believe it??

From a Yahoo! story: U.S. Sending More Troops to Africa

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - The United States sent troops to Africa to safeguard 100 American schoolchildren, U.S. officials said Tuesday, amid new reports of heavy gunfire in the rebel-held city where the youngsters are trapped.

The deployment “is a very welcome development,” said James Forlines, director of Free Will Baptist Foreign Missions, which had sent out calls for help on behalf of the school in the central city of Bouake after rebels breached the school’s walls overnight, firing on its grounds.

“It really was cross fire — not shooting at the children — but a whole lot of ammo going, scaring the kids to death,” he said. Free Will Baptist Foreign Missions has missionaries in the area. Ranging in age from 5 to 18, the young Americans are among 200 foreigners holed up at the boarding school for children of missionaries in Bouake. …

I actually know 2 of the people holed up in there. Tim Carden was a teacher of mine in high school. He, his wife, Liz, and their kids teach at the International Christian Academy in The Ivory Coast. Please pray for their safety.

So what’s on tap for tonight? Well, after the boys go to bed, probably an evening of finishing off a computer for Amanda’s Dad. We’re supposed to go see him tomorrow, and I’d like to have it ready to set up.

Maybe I’ll get to watch the episode of Survivor that we taped last night.
I really loved the first two, but that was it. Last season our “couldn’t-miss” TV show was The Amazing Race 2. It starts next week, along with E.R.

And hooray for me… my Senior Database Administrator at Infinity is now official.

I am beginning to hate Dell.

Turns out that even though I started the return process, it was going to be 3-7 business days before they would even begin the shipping process for my replacement CDRW. However, as I pointed out to the tech. support person, I could completely cancel the order and order a new one in a smaller amount of time.

So I did. And wound up paying exactly $1.00 less than the first time.

Also, thanks to the Hot Deals Club, I picked up a 40GB hard drive for $40.00. It should go nicely in a PC that I’m putting together for Jim & Diane (my in-laws).

So last Monday I found a really good deal on a 40x CDRW at Dell. I’ve been wanting to replace the old 4x that I have, so I dropped my $41 down for it.

Thus my ordeal began.

Some genius at Dell thought that my shipment was important enough to require a signature. A $41 CD drive requires an in-person delivery, even though they have left entire computer systems setting on my doorstep before. Right - just try to catch me or Amanda at home other than when the boys are napping. So after fighting through the most imcompetent UPS office on the planet (Hello, Birmingham!!!), the package unexpectedly showed up yesterday morning, even though it was supposed to be held for pickup.

I finally get the chance to install last night around 11:30pm.

And what do you know, it’s dead. Kaput. Deceased. And what do you know, Dell doesn’t have any support people answering phones past 9pm. I finally got ahold of a human this morning (no small task w/ the Dell phone system), and started the RMA process. Hopefully my new drive is on the way, although now I apparently have no way to track the new drive.

Somebody beat me on the head. This is my second purchase from Dell and unless something changes soon, probably my last.

Back online now, after some Movable Type issues and and an unannounced server move by my Service Provider. Actually it was announced about 4 hours before they move, but some of us don’t spend every waking moment monitoring their website for announcements. That’s why they build things called Mailing Lists.

Anyways, it was a busy week last week. Our 9/11 service drew about 4700 people. I spent the night weaving our little shuttle carts in and out of traffic, trying to get people to the service. Brandon went back to school last Tuesday, and he’s now a big boy - Amanda drops him off in the carpool lane, and he walks to class by himself. Caleb also started Mom’s Day Out on Friday. We were a little worried that he wouldn’t do well, but the Mommy-separation-syndrome ended once he saw toys….
We spent Saturday with Amanda’s family. We also saw my folks for a little while, although I felt like we breezed in, mooched for a while, and blew out to avoid the game traffic.

The weekend was topped off by a trip to the Marble Slab Creamery last night.