August 2004 Archives

Today is Zack's 21st birthday!!! I can't believe he's so old!! Of course his parents haven't aged a bit. Tomorrow he moves into his first apartment close to school. Good luck in school Zack and have a great time with the guys.

Be they ever so humble, our fantasy football teams for 2004:

2003 Defending Champion Soulmen
2003 Runner-up Sharks
2003 Semifinalist The Dream Team
2003 Also-ran but didn’t make the playoffs Ragpickers

Yesterday, Jimmy Soule drafted the Soulmen and Lars Erickson drafted the Sharks and both men did a great job on their first solo draft.

Go Saints! Go Ragpickers!

Omar got his license and a new(er) car. He'll be driving to school (yahoo!) and then responsible for picking up Aminah everyday from her high school. I on the other hand will be driving Aminah to school and then myself to work. Work you say? I am teaching 1st grade back at the private school. Haytham was 19th on the preschool wait list and the only way to get him in was to work there. It will be great to get back into the classroom but right now I am a little overwhelmed(alot!). I also started my classes on Monday, Adolescent Literature, Language Arts llll and Math Methods.

This little guy lost his mother (we found her dead in our neighbors yard). It was just as well because their nest was in the Elm that has to be cut down. We took him to a wild life rehabilitation center where they will release him back into the wild when he gets older.

We are having our eighth annual fantasy football draft Sunday. If you're even remotely interested, the site is here.

Some teams of note:
Ragpickers - My team
Soulmen - Scott & Jimmy's team (Last year's champs)
Sharks - Kevin & Lars team (Last year's runner-up and the team Dad used to share with Kevin)
The Dream Team - Joey's team

Go Saints! Go Ragpickers!

Joey and I decided that with our family expanding we needed a bigger car, so we bought a Honda CRV last night. It’s fun driving a new car, but I tell ya, this morning sickness sure does take the excitement out of life! Nothing is fun and exciting when you feel ill all day long. I’m selling my 2-door Honda Civic to Brianne. She’ll get it when we all meet in Destin next weekend for Labor Day. It’s a great little car in terrific condition. It should serve her well!

My new car is black, just like my old car. I wanted a red one, but they didn’t have one on the lot. My other choices were white, royal blue, and “goldish” tan. I didn’t care much for the other colors so black it is. We hate the car buying experience! Neither of us is a master negotiator. We went in there with all the advice about the invoice and paying only a certain amount over, but they still got a little extra out of us. Not too bad. We got there at 7:15 and left at 9:30 so it was pretty fast. We were pleased. What's the best thing about my new car, you ask? It's an automatic! No more shifting for me.

This was just the first of many purchases made to accommodate the new baby. When I start feeling better we’re going shopping for baby furniture. Now that should be fun!

Classes started this week here at GC&SU, and to my delieght (along with my roommate's), Brianne is going to school here now. It is a pleasant change (so far) going from seeing her every now and again to everyday. This is also the first time all five of the roommates are living in the Man Brothel together. As originally planned we are all sleeping in the master bedroom, and so far so good....I'll include a virtual tour next time....this entry is supposed to be about the pig roast we had this weekend!

So in honor of completing/surviving the first week back, the Man Brothel had its first ever pig roast. Other than the number of tips from more experienced cookers, we didn't have a clue on what we were doing. So giving us plenty of time, Chris, Allen, and I started cooking the 118 lb beast at 4:00am, and spent the rest of the morning rotating it every hour. It was finally done cooking at 3:30 Saturday afternoon.

Family and friends were all invited and the pig couldn't have been any better (not that my Mom would know...seeing as she wouldn't touch it due to all the supposed flies)! We borrowed stereo equipment from Young Life and had a projection screen hooked up playing surf videos the whole time. Once everyone had their fill and cleaned everything up, we watched Point Break on the back lawn. It was a great night.

Here is the pig after being on there for about an hour.

Grandpa, David, Stephen, Sue, Scott, Brianne, Patrick, & Nonnie Clayton
(Click to enlarge)

The blogs here were attacked in a big way by spammers last night. It looks like just about every entry was hit with a spam comment. If one of your entries got hit, you were sent an email with their garbage in it. Sorry about that. The blog has been cleaned up and those particular twits won’t bother us for a while. It takes them about 4 or 5 weeks to figure out a way around my defenses and it takes me about 5 minutes to undo their damage. No damage was done this time, either. After I deleted all of their comments (Over 600), all I had to do was reinstate one of Nancy’s comments that had been swept up in the net. Just delete any email messages you’ve gotten.

I have a love/hate relationship with computers and the internet in particular! I started having problems a few months ago, although I was managing it. It got worse and worse. It turns out that Spyware was what was slowing down my system and kicking me off the internet altogether. It was awful, I wanted to shoot the darn thing! I was going to buy something for it but this little punk at Office Depot insisted that I check out something on the internet called AD-Aware. He said it was free(no such thing) and that it was better than anything he sold. I should have listened to my instincts! I downloaded the product ($29.95) and my computer got WORSE! At this point I decided to take it to Gateway (I have an extended warranty), only there are no gateway stores anymore, so I have to mail it to them. GRRRR! They said to talk to a tech first to see if I could maybe get it straightened out. Luckily for me my tech, Kevin, spoke clear (only slightly accented) English. He diagnosed my problem being spyware and recommended that I install Spy Sweeper. I bought the product (I'll never download another doggone thing!) at Best Buys and Voila! Okay, you're probably wondering why I'm boring you guys. The thing is this: Both Sue and Angela are having the same problems so I thought you guys might be having problems as well! Oh and by the way I have Norton's System Works program on my computer and it doesn't work on spyware!

Oh by the way, I quit smoking last week, can ya tell?

Just wondering what everone's favorite song of all time is!!
Mine is 'Louis Armstrong's ' version of Wonderful World.
Don't ask me why I just love that song; coming in a close second is Let it Be by the Beatles, or John Lenons Imagine. Anybody else???

For those of you who sing in the shower. I sing only in my truck. Thankfully, no one can hear me over the road noise and through the raised windows. At least, I hope not.

The Washington Parish Free Fair is October 20-23 this year. Patsy and I go every year. This year, we will go on Thursday or Friday. We plan to go to Muriel's in the French Quarter one day (Hint: Hint: Katie) and to the fair on the other. I guess weather will be the deciding factor. Join us if you can.

Well, the honeymoon is over. I witnessed a major fistfight last night between Liezel and Gretel. It scared me, but when the dust settled and we all calmed down, there were no torn ligaments, no drops of blood on my new (9 years) carpet, no stitches required, no whining and crying, and later, when I invited Gretel to come back in the house, everything was fine, although Liezel stared at her the rest of the night.

Liezel was a total pushover in spite of her two-pound advantage. She screamed and hollered for mercy, but Gretel just kept at her. I finally got hold of Gretel's scruff and yanked and she was fastened to Liezel so tightly, I was suddenly holding two dogs in the air. I thought I had hold of a pit bull and would need one of those break sticks they use to pry their mouths apart.

Up till now, it's been a wonderful experience having her. She seemed to fit in so well, and after a few days Liezel welcomed her. They could play chase for hours, following the same route and digging a groove in my new (9 years) carpet.

This morning seems to be fine. It looks like all is forgiven and forgotten.