a wonder (and) full weekend

Last week was pretty busy and a little on the rough side for not only me, but my family, church and a few friends. I don't normally get into the person aspects of my life, but I do see the Indoob as somewhat of a documentation. But in retrospect, I must say that some positive things came out of such a long week, and I felt the need to recognize them.

For most of the week, I've been doing some much needed work on my church's website. You can check it out if you want, but as you'll see, I haven't updated it in a long time. It hopefully will be fully updated by Thursday, or Friday. And I'm no pro at web design, I just know the basics and that's all that is. Besides, I'm the only one my dad knows that is capable and I currently work for free.

Thursday, my friend whom I shall codename as "Kitten" (although she probably wouldn't mind if I used her real name) dropped off a gift of appreciation for just being her friend. Internally, I felt like weeping, but really I just don't know how to handle unexpected niceness like that. I think it's a guy thing. Pineapple is my favorite fruit... so...


My first chocolate covered fruit!



And check out this sentimental special note that almost surely brought the tears.

In case you are struggling to make out the words, it says "Thank you for being there for me. You really are the best friend anyone could ever have." She's awesome.

Friday night, the Kitten and I met up with my other best friend whom I've affectionately dubbed "Dearest" and had dinner at a buffet that Kitten and I actually ate at for lunch. So yes, I went to the same buffet twice in the same day. No judging, thanks. Anyway, we met Dearest's boyfriend whom I heard so much about, and now I can officially approve. But the highlight for me was to have two awesome, beautiful women who happen to be the best friends I've had for some time, share a table with me. Another minor note, we seem to share a love for discussing poop. Buy that book, it'd be awesome to see that on a best seller's list. You know you're curious. Anyway, the Dearest mailed me a letter I recieved possibly a couple days late, also telling me how great of a friend I am. Look at the time she put into writing me! This is what I love about my friends... the time they take to show me that care is worth so much more than what money could buy.


Saturday I watched an awesome movie called The Notorious Bettie Page. I knew very little about the real life person, and Jaden at ScreenwritingforHollywood indirectly recommended I look into it. I fell in love with the way the movie was shot, that's the first thing. Secondly, between the actress playing her and Ms. Page herself? Absolutely beautiful. Before the movie was even over I was at my laptop writing up a draft of a treatment to a brand new story this movie inspired. The interesting this it has nothing to do with Betty, pin-up models, or anything that movie dealt with. It really doesn't have a title, but it's about a young man who moves from the city to an old southern country town and converts a run down barn into a makeshift movie theater. I was going to use this set up as a way to showcase several short films that I, or others have written and filmed. But the concept took on a life of it's own as I started fleshing out who this guy was and why he was there and things like that. Honestly, that's my favorite part about storytelling.

I finished with great timing... Kitten wanted to go out to dinner as well as test her car in the snow. I live on a hill so she had trouble getting to my house, but she made it just as I wrote the ending sentence. We ventured out to Friendly's which closed early. Too bad for them.

During service on Sunday, I was happy to see some people hadn't seen in a while. That's always nice. It also struck me, while someone was talking, not to hold grudges which apparently I think I may be doing. So later today, I will fix that error. Nobody's perfect, but if there is something wrong with ourselves that we are aware of, why not get it right?

Afterwards the entire family went out to the Olive Garden--where everyone is family. Good times. Dame (my brother-in-law) told me about an idea that he (and my sister, his wife) had been thinking of for sometime. Basically, he'd like to start a production company with me, mostly to help out around the church but to eventually branch out and help others. I'd take video and graphics duties, while he did mostly audio work like recording and sound production. He's the church's keyboardist and wrote a few songs. So we'd be a dangerous combination. So we chatted about that later that night while also discussing some recently favorited songs, or styles of songs. I'm currently getting into Go-Go music, similar to this:


The night got better with a phone call from not just a best friend, but one I consider a brother-from-another-mother. We chatted for a while, and for once, about me and my life. It was nice to get some of my own drama out even if I hate admitting I have it. But even while I was telling him my story, it came out as a comedy because it made him laugh. Imagine that.

Lastly, one of my newest friends who doesn't have a nickname yet, I chatted with online as we watched the last hour of the Golden Globes. Woot woot for 30 Rock and Tina Fey. I've been strongly recommended to see Slumdog Millionaire and have even been given a website to watch it for free. But I have morals. And if the movie business is something I want to get into, then it's like robbing from myself. It'd be different if it were a legit site, like, Netflix, Hulu or something. But 'twasn't. Yet I do want to see this movie really bad.

Oh, and now Sam is back and fully functional. There's a picture of him being towed away, but I'm too tired to do that right now. There's more than enough links and pictures to make this a fully interactive post, no?

So, my lesson to all is that although things may look bad, they could always be worse. Appreciate everything and reflect on the positive because who wants to sit around being sad and depressed?

someone call batman

What a weekend it has been so far!

To make a long story short (something that's hard for me to do as well making long stories one of the qualities people like about my stories), I made my first real 9-1-1 call Thursday night. Why did I add the "real" part? A few years ago with one of my older cell phones, I accidentally locked myself out of my phone and couldn't remember the password to unlock it or reset it. But it had some kind of emergency number thingy, and without really thinking about it I called that and annoyed a dispatched or clearly stated that this was a number for emergencies and hung up. I would be upset too if someone called me to complain they locked themselves out of their cell phone.

Anyway some guy was screeching his SUV through my yard Thursday night around 10-10:30 trying to run over some dude. It was amazing they didn't hit anything in the yard since my grandmother has been cutting down our little trees. Anyway the man was doing the best he could to avoid this guy and as my mother, grandmother and I stepped out of the house he pleaded for us to call the cops. Meanwhile the SUV is now trying to back up after going into someone elses yard alarming more neighbors who are also calling the cops. I was already dialing as my mother was telling me to do so and giving out my info, feeling like a active citizen and watching my tax dollars goto work.

With the quickness, I heard sirens and saw flashing lights zooming down the street before I even got off the phone. My guess is they were on pursuit of the SUV whom had since fled the scene. A few minutes later a cop came to our area and talked with the victim who told the cop the guy trying to hit him is drunk, driving an uninsured car, and where the guy lived. Meanwhile, a vehicle approaches from a side street, sort've slowly, then brakes suddenly. Naturally it catches everyone's attention, and once the SUV realizes we're all stand by a police car, it does the best it can to make a U-turn in the tiny street hitting what sounding like a mailbox. The cop makes a K-turn and goes after the SUV.

My mother runs back in the house, I chat briefly with a friend of mine whom I haven't seen in YEARS! We discuss how it's a shame we have to meet under the circumstances, but we're glad to see each other once again.

I run back in the house because it's almost time to get ready to see The Dark Knight which I bought midnight tickets for earlier that day. When I go back out to leave, I see cops posted on the street with lights on and flashing. I don't know if they caught the guy but I'd like to think and hope that they did.

Meanwhile, I saw a real villian on screen that absolutely frightened me as well as cracked me up. I told so many people how awesome this movie is, and for once, this is a movie that lives up to it's hype.

It was a disgustingly long day and night, but I good 24 hours nonetheless. I made my quota by 11 files, and made my own by 1. Technically 56 files altogether. But whatever, it's good to be safe again. Batman had nothing to do with that though. Actually he distracted me. Stupid Batman....

here we go, week #4

Okay, this is getting a little tiring. I would really like to have some work to do. Fortunately I have a list of things to do to kill some time until some files are ready to be pulled or my manager pushes some to me.

In the meantime, I can help a friend look for a job. I can write some brand new poetry/monologues based on events I learned over the weekend. I finally brought my camera out and about, maybe I'll go outside and take pictures of random things, but all up close and artistic-like. I kind've doubt I'll do all that, so I'll probably find things to take pictures of on my desk.

Today i got in at 6:30am. There are certain vibes that sort've happens at certain times. When I'm here at 6, it's super quiet. 6:30, there's a bit of bustle going on. 7-8 is a growing stream. And by 8-9:30 is the main flow of people coming into work, dying out by 9:30 which is the cut-off time as to when you're allowed to be late. There is also some kind of ratio to how the parking lots fill up. By 7am, a good majority of the main lot that I park in is full. 6:30, like when I arrived today, it's usually half full. Not bad, you still get a good spot to choose from. By that I mean you don't have to walk far. But the parking resembled how the lot looks at 6am. If you worked here, you would understand how that 30 minutes makes a difference. For good measure, I should go out and check at 7.

I think it's the holiday weekend. For example, my mother isn't coming in today. I'm already wishing I decided to do the same. My body feels like I was at the gym yesterday. This isn't the case as all, unless I'm feeling the workout I did Saturday, which doesn't tend to happen. But what can you do? Ride it out of course. I'm still debating if I'll workout afterwork today, now that I found my favorite machines to use.

I'm just about done with my coffee, so I'm going to go off and find some work or trouble to get into for the next 10ish hours. If I get too bored... I'll be back.

weekend productivity

I would go on a day by day of what this weekend entailed, but it's not really that necessary. Instead, a brief summary of the highlights?

Thursday night, I rearranged my room. I do this every 12-18 months. Sometimes you just need a change, right? I'm hoping this is the last time I do this because I hope to move out this year. I don't know how likely that is. But now my laptop and computer is set up so I can't access it as easily with it being right next to my bed. So hopefully, I will sleep better without this major distraction.

Friday I went out to lunch with my friend like I normally do, nowadays. Afterwards, I was going to go car shopping, because I really need to replace Sam. My dad called and needed my help with something, so I never shopped for the car and went home. I continued to do more work on my room. Technically, even right now, it still isn't done. There are little things like organizing my CDs and random things I don't want to throw away. I did throw out 2 full trashbags of stuff. I need to do the same for my clothes. Instead of throwing them away, donating to charity or something? Yeah, that sounds good.

I don't think I did much the rest of Friday... not that I can remember. Saturday I went out car shopping finally. But not after a noon iced latte with my friend... and a random encouter with a drunkard asking for 50 cents. It was rather discomforting, but as long as he didn't mess with my friend, I was alright. I just wanted her away from him, and fortunately he didn't even talk to her. Anyway, we traveled to 2 dealerships, technically 3... but just to look around. I completely forgot all that I learned about how to get a good deal. But fortunately, later that day I re-learned what I needed to know, so I think I'm ready to go back shopping first. But I MUST get a car this weekend. My plan is to visit at least 2 dealerships, but I already saw the car in mind, so I just may go from there and pretend I saw another car with a better deal elsewhere... which is partially true... but if no one comes out to talk to me about your car, why would I come back?

I recommend reading http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/article.html (Edmunds.com's Confessions of a Car Salesman). It's a lot of reading, but it's useful if you are looking to buying a car. Almost makes you mad at car salesmen. But educational, and a bit humorous nonetheless.

Later that night I went to hang with my cousin. She and some friends were celebrating her boyfriend's birthday. We had a good time. I was supposed to go somewhere else, but that ultimately got cancelled. It wasn't too bad. I was just happy to be out. I even played DDR. I didn't want to but they made me. No doubt I need practice.

Needless to say, I watched quite a bit of movies over the weekend. Check the MySpace blog for that.

Now here it is Sunday. My usual churchin' went on. Had a good time. Once I came home, I fell asleep. Longer than expected. But I was pooped.

Now it's time to start the new week. My last week with Sam, hopefully. Am I sad? Not entirely. We had some good times, but it's time to move on. I've got work tomorrow too. WOOT! Now I won't be bored. I'm weird, I know.