Well, I was wrong. Chris went home, so there goes the last chance of North Carolinian representing yet again on American Idol. I was honestly pretty shocked and Amanda was mad that we hadn’t voted last night. The thinking is that Chris was such a favorite that people assumed he was fine and didn’t bother to vote. Also, Elliott’s been doing better and better lately, and he’s a bit of an underdog. He and Taylor were the top two. Katherine really should have been the one going home after the last couple weeks she’s had. Oh well. He’ll probably get a recording contract anyway. Jason will be happy; he didn’t like Chris.

I felt pretty good about the amount of work I accomplished today; I’m almost caught up. With all the packing and moving and signing and paying and getting things in order, my work has fallen behind a bit of late, but I’m fortunate enough to have co-workers, Scott and Josh, who are very understanding and help me out when and how they can.

I was going at it pretty good when I got sidetracked by a couple calls. One was a client who was frustrated by a number of things lately, some of which are out of our hands, and one from a lawyer with a suit against a client of ours. Speaking of clients, I talked to one of our most reknowned clients today for the frist time, even though I’ve done tons of work on his site. William Poole seems to be a pretty affable guy. I mentioned my relation to his dentist and we joked about how the guy goes through cars. Of course, if I were on his bad side, we probably wouldn’t have been laughing on the phone. But I enjoyed my first conversation with him quite a bit.

Amanda spent most of her lunch going to the other house and cleaning up a little more of that was left. I didn’t really take a lunch, which will probably happen more often since I tend to keep working when I’m in the groove and Amanda doesn’t work two minutes from the house anymore, lessening the likelihood of us getting together for lunch as often, whether it’s at home or out.

I did go out to pick up my check though. It was somewhat risky because I was waiting on the digital phone guy to come out and hook that up. For some reason I can’t rememeber, we scheduled him to come out in the afternoon, although I tend to prefer things like that happening in the morning. I ended up getting back in plenty of time, although I almost missed him due to the fact that I was sitting at the picnic table out back and eating a bowl of cereal when he came by. He was here for quite a while. Apparently the phone and cable wiring in this house are a little screwy. He ended up installing a new phone jack upstairs behind the bed so now the modem and router are back there. I’m going to see if my dad can maybe help me out with all that at some point.

I worked pretty hard the rest of the day (once my internet was back up- the cab;e guy moved the modem but not the wireless router, which threw me off a little until I hooked it up) and left a little after 5:00 to get Amanda’s present. By the way, the reason I chanced missing the cable guy to get my check deposited is because it’s a pretty decent amount and we’re currently destitute at the moment.

The Blue Angels flew over the house a few times in the early afternoon. They were really low, but by the time I thought to grab the zoom lens and snap some pictures they had finished. I think they’ve got a show in Jacksonville this weekend, if I heard the radio or news correctly, and they were giving a demonstration today. We don’t live far from the airport.

Amanda and I unpacked a bunch more stuff tonight. She broke a glass and cut her finger, making this the second such mishap (the first being with a bowl, I believe, that already had a crack in it). Amanda also started putting things on the built in bookcases in the bedroom and I started setting up computer stuff inthe office, which is where I am now. I’ve even set up the old computer I built in college, although I can’t find the power cord. It’ll be fun to see what all is on there. I’ll back everything I want to keep onto the portable hard drive I got for Christmas then who knows what I’ll do with it. Maybe when Michael moves in I can get him interested in multiplayer real time strategy games. Or maybe I can dedicate it as my photo storage computer. I don’t know.
We met Ben and Jessica Lambeth and Kristen Barriner and Rob Peterson at a Port City Java out in Ogden, or Porter’s Neck, I don’t know all the areas around here yet, for small group. Ben and Jessica had three cards for us; one for the anniversary, one for the house and one for Amanda’s birthday. They also got us some cabdles that match the bedroom. Rob and Kristen had gotten us a card last week for our anniversary. Paul is still doing some work in New York (so obviously he didn’t come) and Kim ended up working a little late, although she did call and even contributed some timely suggestions for the group.

I think our get together tonight was a pretty good one. It wasn’t the most structured, but we had some good discussions about what we’d all like to get out of the group, our expectations and, to some degree, what we struggle with. We also talked about things that were directly pertinent to our lives, such as church and money, jealousy of success, control versus being laid back and how faith works in there. Overall I thought it was a good, meaningful meeting.

Amanda had second thoughts about using the duvet cover I’d gotten her, since it’s all back and white and our room isn’t. I told her I wouldn’t be at all offended if she wanted to take it back, seeing firsthand how it looks in the room. I like it personally; I think the heavy contrast is kind of nice. She seemed to come around and figured she’d try it for a few days, so we set it up and tested it out. Speaking of which, it’s probably about time for me to get to bed.