Work was mostly slow today, although it did start off with a number of calls. I left in the early afternoon to pick up my paycheck, and while I was at Scott’s accountant they were having a little computer trouble so they asked if I could help. Basically they needed to upgrade a program but couldn’t find it on their network. I found it and installed it and waited to make sure everything was working okay, although if it was not, there’s not much I could have done about it. It was nice to be able to help though.

After that I got a call from Amanda as I was heading to the bank. We had dropped something off at Things Remembered on Saturday to change the engraving on it and they told us it would be in on Monday. Then they said it’d be in on Tuesday. We called yesterday and they said it’d be on by today, so I called them before I left the house (since the accountant is near the mall I figured I’d knock that out if I could) and they said it wasn’t it yet, but it should be by today’s shipment. Amanda called them while I was doing my running around and they said they in fact did have it in. I have no idea how they suddenly found it, but there you have it.

So I deposited my check at the bank then drove through a neighborhood to get to the mall. Wrightsville Avenue and Oleander Drive were both very backed up from what I could tell. I heard on the radio that all the major intersections on any route I took home were backed up too. I love Wilmington traffic. Anyway, I got to the mall and instead of trying to look for a spot I just parked in the first semi-vacant area I could find, which was on the Sears side and almost out of the mall area.

I picked up a pretzel and a slushie on the way to Things Remembered and sat to eat that near the carousel. At Things Remembered, they pretty quickly gave me what I needed and didn’t even charge for it, which I thought was nice since the typo was our fault. I headed back on home through a myriad of traffic. Once back I took care of a few minor things then hung it up for the day. Amanda got off work at 3:00 and Jason and I finished up yesterday’s StarCraft game then started another. That game was taking a while though, and Amanda and I had made plans with Anna and Barry.

We met Amanda’s aunt and uncle at 5:00 at Terrazzo, a classy little Italian joint that had expanded and become quite a bit more swank since the last time we ate there. I mean, it was nice before, but now it had mood lighting and cool little lamps and a water wall. Very nice. Barry surprised us by paying for the meal. After that we all headed over to Mayfaire Cinema to watch Blood Diamond. We all thought it was pretty good, but if Leonardo DiCaprio is going to get an acting award, I think it should be for The Departed. (He’s nominated for a Golden Globe for both movies this year.) That’s not to take anything away from the work he did on Blood Diamond, but I think the character in The Departed was overall more believable. In Blood Diamond he did a bunch of actiony things like running through helicopter fire unscathed and mowing down African rebels with machine guns. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Blood Diamond and it did make me think about looking more into the diamond trade, and some of the scenes were absolutely hellish, but I think The Departed was a tighter movie overall.

The weather’s been pretty nice lately. Christmas is in just a few days and I’ve been wearing t-shirts everyday. Barry’s even going out surfing tomorrow. The high’s supposed to be around 70. I think Christmas Eve is supposed to get a little chillier, but then it’s warming up again on Christmas I think.

That reminds me, Anna and Barry have long been considering starting to go to Port City Community Church. Amanda and I even started going there on Anna’s suggestion. Their older daughter, Hannah, has been going there for a while and their younger daughter, Kirsten (whom I heard has actually been looking at this site) went there last week and liked it a lot. When we first started going there the main thing Anna said was holding them back from going was that Hannah and Kirsten had a lot of friends and such at the church they’re going to now, plus Anna has been involved in teaching the kids there for a long time. Well, they’re coming Sunday. I think Amanda and I were able to convince them to come to the 8:30 service. Last week on the bulletins, they were announcing all the services for next week and they had the 10:30 one written in a very tiny font. 10:30 is always very busy, and this week it will of course be even much more so.

Zach Dotsey