Friday at work was another rough one for me. It seems like Fridays, especially Friday afternoons, are some of the most hectic times of the week. Friday should be the day where you can mentally check out a little bit; enjoy yourself a little bit more. That happens sometimes, but not this week. When I finally got home I just wanted to veg out. I resisted the urge. We went to dinner then made a quick stop at Home Depot to pick up some trim. As we got home the sunlight was waning, but I had just enough left to get the front door painted. Our front door was looking pretty shabby. It needed perked up a bit. I spray painted it; which I was worried about. I thought it might look pretty ghetto to put spray paint on a front door. However, I had used the same paint on our back patio furniture and it looked really nice. I really didn't have anything to lose. The door wasn't going to look any worse than what it already did. Everything turned out great. The door looks 100% better. I should have painted it a long time ago.|
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The Productive Weekend
I will be the first to admit that I am not all that handy around the house. I don't have many carpentry skills, and I just generally don't get into household projects. For some reason I was motivated to get things done this weekend. By noon today I had accomplished more than what I have in the past 10 weekends.
Friday at work was another rough one for me. It seems like Fridays, especially Friday afternoons, are some of the most hectic times of the week. Friday should be the day where you can mentally check out a little bit; enjoy yourself a little bit more. That happens sometimes, but not this week. When I finally got home I just wanted to veg out. I resisted the urge. We went to dinner then made a quick stop at Home Depot to pick up some trim. As we got home the sunlight was waning, but I had just enough left to get the front door painted. Our front door was looking pretty shabby. It needed perked up a bit. I spray painted it; which I was worried about. I thought it might look pretty ghetto to put spray paint on a front door. However, I had used the same paint on our back patio furniture and it looked really nice. I really didn't have anything to lose. The door wasn't going to look any worse than what it already did. Everything turned out great. The door looks 100% better. I should have painted it a long time ago.
Friday at work was another rough one for me. It seems like Fridays, especially Friday afternoons, are some of the most hectic times of the week. Friday should be the day where you can mentally check out a little bit; enjoy yourself a little bit more. That happens sometimes, but not this week. When I finally got home I just wanted to veg out. I resisted the urge. We went to dinner then made a quick stop at Home Depot to pick up some trim. As we got home the sunlight was waning, but I had just enough left to get the front door painted. Our front door was looking pretty shabby. It needed perked up a bit. I spray painted it; which I was worried about. I thought it might look pretty ghetto to put spray paint on a front door. However, I had used the same paint on our back patio furniture and it looked really nice. I really didn't have anything to lose. The door wasn't going to look any worse than what it already did. Everything turned out great. The door looks 100% better. I should have painted it a long time ago.Our Brief Voyage North
This past weekend we decided to have a very mini vacation and make the 12 hour drive home. I took Friday and Monday off of work. I was really wanting to take a couple days off of work. The weekends weren't cutting it anymore. So, the long weekend came with good timing.
We packed up our duffel bags last Thursday evening, then got to bed early. Friday morning we were up by 4am. We loaded up the dogs in the car and were on our way before 5. We sailed through Missouri and Illinois only to get slowed down by afternoon traffic in Indy . Our goal was to make it to Ft. Wayne around 5:30pm, and we just barely missed it.
While it was nice for me to get a couple extra days off of work, the main purpose of the trip was to meet Mr. Ethan Nathaniel Roy Miller. Ethan is one of Ft. Wayne Indiana's newest residents, and subsequently the offspring of my best friend since 1988; one Justin Miller. I am Justin's elder by 9 months. Ethan will be roughly 7 months older than my developing child. Undoubtedly, they will be best friends. It was imperative that we introduce them to one another even though Baby Bidwell is still in utero.
We spent Friday evening hanging out with the Miller clan. Saturday we attended a baby shower slash welcome-to-the-world celebration. The rest of the day we visited with family, and had dinner. On Sunday we went to church, then grilled out for lunch at the Bidwell farmstead, then had dinner with the Pelfreys. Monday morning it was once again time to hit the road and follow our still-fresh breadcrumbs back to Arkansas. We drove about 26 hours in the matter of roughly 84 hours. Assuming we slept 7 hours each night that left us with 37 waking hours that were pretty special. It also left us exhausted on a Monday night, with the knowledge we had to get up the next morning and return to work.
Overall it was a great weekend. Not something we would want to repeat very often, but definitely glad we did it. You can see lot of pictures from our weekend over at my wife's blog. Yes, I am so lazy that I am not even going to post any of them here, but I don't see the point in duplicating efforts.
We packed up our duffel bags last Thursday evening, then got to bed early. Friday morning we were up by 4am. We loaded up the dogs in the car and were on our way before 5. We sailed through Missouri and Illinois only to get slowed down by afternoon traffic in Indy . Our goal was to make it to Ft. Wayne around 5:30pm, and we just barely missed it.
While it was nice for me to get a couple extra days off of work, the main purpose of the trip was to meet Mr. Ethan Nathaniel Roy Miller. Ethan is one of Ft. Wayne Indiana's newest residents, and subsequently the offspring of my best friend since 1988; one Justin Miller. I am Justin's elder by 9 months. Ethan will be roughly 7 months older than my developing child. Undoubtedly, they will be best friends. It was imperative that we introduce them to one another even though Baby Bidwell is still in utero.
We spent Friday evening hanging out with the Miller clan. Saturday we attended a baby shower slash welcome-to-the-world celebration. The rest of the day we visited with family, and had dinner. On Sunday we went to church, then grilled out for lunch at the Bidwell farmstead, then had dinner with the Pelfreys. Monday morning it was once again time to hit the road and follow our still-fresh breadcrumbs back to Arkansas. We drove about 26 hours in the matter of roughly 84 hours. Assuming we slept 7 hours each night that left us with 37 waking hours that were pretty special. It also left us exhausted on a Monday night, with the knowledge we had to get up the next morning and return to work.
Overall it was a great weekend. Not something we would want to repeat very often, but definitely glad we did it. You can see lot of pictures from our weekend over at my wife's blog. Yes, I am so lazy that I am not even going to post any of them here, but I don't see the point in duplicating efforts.
The Mattress
I think the nesting instinct has kicked in and Amanda is ready to get the baby's room going. While we're at it, she also wanted to sell the futon in our 2nd extra bedroom so we could buy a more comfortable mattress for when family comes to visit. I got a call at work on Wednesday saying that she found a full mattress on Craigslist that she wanted to buy. She called the guy and let him know we would be coming to look at it. I got another call later letting me know that I was to go get the mattress after work, she had arranged for a friend with a pickup truck to come pick me up around 6. This is the most promptly executed plan I have ever seen from my wife. She must really want this mattress.
As a rule I try to avoid Craigslist if at all possible. The whole process of going to some stranger's house based on a shady internet post feels kinda rapey to me. Regardless, my ride arrived and we headed to some unknown location in the Arkansas backwoods. Actually it was only a few miles out of town, but it wasn't a very nice neighborhood. We pull up to this house with an old man standing in the driveway. His garage door is open and it is filled will all kinds of shit. He had at least 6 mattresses stacked up, along with several appliances, and pretty much any other junk you could think of. I knew nothing of this mattress I was sent here to buy. He pointed out the merchandise in question that my wife had called him about. At that moment I wanted to kindly thank him for his time, and get the heck out of there. However, I didn't drive... and I would feel really bad making this guy that was nice enough to drive me all the way down here just have to turn around and take me back home. So, I bought the dang thing. It was a clean mattress, which was what the posting had claimed. However, I wasn't expecting it to be from 1975. It was also very clear that this was not THIS GUY'S mattress... not saying that would have made me feel any better. The point is, I have no clue where the hell this thing came from. He probably bought it at some estate sale. There was probably a dead body lying on this mattress mere months ago.
As a rule I try to avoid Craigslist if at all possible. The whole process of going to some stranger's house based on a shady internet post feels kinda rapey to me. Regardless, my ride arrived and we headed to some unknown location in the Arkansas backwoods. Actually it was only a few miles out of town, but it wasn't a very nice neighborhood. We pull up to this house with an old man standing in the driveway. His garage door is open and it is filled will all kinds of shit. He had at least 6 mattresses stacked up, along with several appliances, and pretty much any other junk you could think of. I knew nothing of this mattress I was sent here to buy. He pointed out the merchandise in question that my wife had called him about. At that moment I wanted to kindly thank him for his time, and get the heck out of there. However, I didn't drive... and I would feel really bad making this guy that was nice enough to drive me all the way down here just have to turn around and take me back home. So, I bought the dang thing. It was a clean mattress, which was what the posting had claimed. However, I wasn't expecting it to be from 1975. It was also very clear that this was not THIS GUY'S mattress... not saying that would have made me feel any better. The point is, I have no clue where the hell this thing came from. He probably bought it at some estate sale. There was probably a dead body lying on this mattress mere months ago.
Phones Aren't For Talking
I was reading an article in a magazine last night and I came to a realization that most people probably understood years ago. Phones are not for talking anymore. As a 28 year old I am still fairly young, but I can remember very clearly the times before cell phones were so commonplace. It doesn't seem like it should be possible, but I can remember back to before everybody had their own email address. It hasn't been all that long ago that the only way you could communicate with somebody was to talk to him, and he had to be at his house, or you had to be standing right next to him.
Face to face conversation has always been, and always will be the most meaningful form of communication. Now with Apple's front-facing camera on the iPhone, that experience can be somewhat duplicated on a mobile device. It still has a little ways to go. The most synchronous and pure form of communication will probably always be two people, in the same place, talking back and forth. As a society we have always had the desire and the need to communicate at a distance. Back in the day one's options were limited. A letter could be written, transported over several days, at which time the letter would be read and responded to. This is one of the most asynchronous forms of communication that we could ever imagine. In striving to shorten this gap we got the pony express to speed up the delivery of letters. Later we had the telegraph, the first form of the text message. Then came the wonderful invention of the telephone. This gave us instant information, and allowed humans to interact across distances in the most synchronized fashion possible. This was such a good technology, look how long it has remained the communication medium of choice.
Journaling and Pens
*just a warning - after writing this post I went back and read it, only to realize it was the most boring and pointless thing I have ever written. you might as well just skip it
Yesterday was my birthday. I am now 28 years old. I don't feel any different or anything like that, and I didn't find it to be such a momentous occasion. Birthdays are fine, but in the end it is just another day. Maybe when I turn 30 it will seem more important. More likely it will just feel more sad. For my birthday my wonderful wife bought me a gift I Have been wanting for a very long time. She got me a moleskine notebook. I realize moleskine notebooks are a very hipster trendy thing to own. I don't own it so I can look cool and artistic while I write at Starbucks. I freaking hate Starbucks. No, I just really enjoy writing.
I have been keeping a journal since my freshman year of college. I wish I would have started writing one during high school. I would love to go back and read that now. I don't really know why I started one, but I have done a fairly decent job of keeping up with it on a regular basis for the last 9 years. I started out with pen and paper. For the first couple years I wrote only this way. Then I realized how much faster it is to type things out. I started a soft-copy version, and rarely wrote anything in the hard-copy version. To add to the fragmentation, I started this blog. This is hardly a journal at all, I am not even sure why the hell I feel the need to write on a website that everybody can read.
Yesterday was my birthday. I am now 28 years old. I don't feel any different or anything like that, and I didn't find it to be such a momentous occasion. Birthdays are fine, but in the end it is just another day. Maybe when I turn 30 it will seem more important. More likely it will just feel more sad. For my birthday my wonderful wife bought me a gift I Have been wanting for a very long time. She got me a moleskine notebook. I realize moleskine notebooks are a very hipster trendy thing to own. I don't own it so I can look cool and artistic while I write at Starbucks. I freaking hate Starbucks. No, I just really enjoy writing.
I have been keeping a journal since my freshman year of college. I wish I would have started writing one during high school. I would love to go back and read that now. I don't really know why I started one, but I have done a fairly decent job of keeping up with it on a regular basis for the last 9 years. I started out with pen and paper. For the first couple years I wrote only this way. Then I realized how much faster it is to type things out. I started a soft-copy version, and rarely wrote anything in the hard-copy version. To add to the fragmentation, I started this blog. This is hardly a journal at all, I am not even sure why the hell I feel the need to write on a website that everybody can read.
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