This week seemed to start off pretty slow, but it’s ending up pretty fast. Seems every week is doing that. Before I know it I’ll be 30, then I’ll be 50, then I’ll be 80, then who knows. That is, of course, if civilization lasts that long. Ha.

There was video released today of Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter. He had taped a bunch of footage, a “manifesto” it’s being called, of him railing against the privileged and painting himself a persecuted martyr. The guy was really messed up. According to the time stamp on the package he sent, I think it was to NBC, he sent the package, also including a bunch of photos, in between the time he killed the first two people and when he went on his larger rampage in Norris Hall.

First thing today, Dave Narron, our across-the-street neighbor, came by to talk to me about my car. Dave works on cars for a living and I was due for an oil change and my brakes needed some working on, so I dropped the car off (yes, all the way across the street) yesterday. He explained he’d been really busy on an engine job and hadn’t gotten to doing anything on the car yet, which was fine. Looking it over though, he noticed that the tired needed rotating as well, but then there was a bit of a leak in the engine as well. I don’t remember all the details, but he said it’s fairly common with the engine in my car (a 1997 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme). It’ll be pricey to fix, but he said the car should be good yet another 90,000 miles or so (that being where it is now) if we got that taken care of. The good news is that it doesn’t need to be done right away (still hurting a little from the taxes), but it does need to be taken care of.

While I was talking to Dave, a chocolate Doberman walked up his driveway. I recognized it as belonging to the people who live behind us, and sure enough a minute later I saw their other dog, which I guess is a fat old Labrador retriever. They had both gotten out of their yard once while we were walking Bruce and they were very interested in him. They’re both really friendly. After checking in on something back in the office I went over to the house they belonged to to let their owners know they were out, but I saw that he’d already gotten them back.
I was on the phone again a lot today. The nice thing about it is that I feel I have a number of decent leads. The downside is that it takes up a lot of time and makes it hard to get other things done that I need to get done.

Since we had small group tonight Amanda and I cleaned up a little after work then at 6:30 I went to go pick up chicken dinners from the Clawson’s. Polly and Dave Clawson are our small group mentors, so to speak, and they have two kids who are trying to raise money for a summer camp, Big Stuf. A few weeks ago they sold chicken Parmesan dinners and I’d picked up three of them: one for each human occupant here. Tonight Michael was fixing himself some steak, but I picked up six: one for each person in our group. It was a pretty decent meeting. Elliot Clark and Melissa Nicholson were a little late because they forgot we’d decided to meet at The Connection next week instead of this week. No biggie- we finished out discussion right on time, a little before 9:00.

After they and Rob Peterson and Kristen Barriner all left Amanda, Michael and I watched last night’s South Park and My Name is Earl. Amanda went to bed and Michael and I played some Gears of War along with Michael’s friend Chris Flowers and, as it turns out, a few people from Greenville. I started out really bad, but I ended up with a few good rounds.

Michael has a busy day ahead of him tomorrow. He’s got to go by the bank to explain that, according to his online banking account, he didn’t overdrawn any money. He’s got all positive balances showing up, but in the middle of them there’s a withdrawal for an overdraw fee. It makes no sense. Then he’s got an interview at Port City Java at Lumina Station. After that he might pick up an application for the Starbucks at Mayfaire. He was told from Amanda via Anna via Barry via the manager at Starbucks that Starbucks pays better and gives you stock options and benefits at 20 hours per week. Not shabby for pouring coffee.

Of course, I still think he should check out the place where my brother Adam works. The pay would be almost twice as much and it would look better on a resume. But everyone else is saying that he’ll meet more people at a coffee shop and he doesn’t think he’d be very happy doing the other job. I’ve let him know my thoughts, but I’ve tried avoiding giving him the badgering he gets from some of his family members.

Zach Dotsey