Man, what a day of letdowns.

First off, let me say that today was in no way a bad day personally. Work, while not overly stressful today, was very busy, particularly in terms of trying to answer all the incoming e-mails. I didn’t give myself much of a lunch break, but overall it was a decent day. I’m doing well with my goal of making an extra $50 a day too, which is a very good thing.

The first letdown of the day came when Patrick Patterson announced that he was not going to Duke. Patrick Patterson was heavily recruited by a number of teams, with Duke, Kentucky and Florida leading the pack. He’s have filled a much-needed position for Duke, especially after the departure of Josh McRoberts. Now we just have to hope that Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek make some big strides over the summer.

On the upside, Patterson did declare for Kentucky. They’re rebuilding and could really use the boost, and since I was born a Wildcat, I can’t hate it for them.

The second letdown of the day, more of a surprise I’d say, was that the American Idol Finale will feature Blake Lewis and Jordin Sparks. That means Melinda Doolittle, by far the absolute best vocalist of the season and the odds-on winner of the show, will not be there. It’s a shame because her musical style is suited to an American Idol record. Based on that, I’d say Jordin would do best to win. Blake’s style is somewhat niche, and I don’t think the American Idol producers would know what to properly do with him.

I ended up working until a bit after Amanda got home tonight. She changed and went outside to spread some of the ashes from the burn pile onto some of the plants in the yard, but after just a little bit of it she decided she didn’t like the way it looked and quit. I told her it would blend un just fine and that it would look fine after a little watering. All that said, I just read a little bit on the subject and think perhaps we should either have our soil pH tested or just not use it at all. Thing is, we’ve got a huge mound of ashes in the middle of the yard and we need to do something with them. Maybe we can experiment by putting some down in places we know we don’t care about things growing and seeing how they do.

After that, and after I stopped working, we watched Smallville, Law & Order: SVU and CSI: Miami. Then we watched American Idol and Amanda went to bed. I started downloading the Halo 3 Beta, which should be just about finished now, so I’m going to go play that with Michael and Chris, who are also downloading it.

Bruce did something funny enough that I had to call Amanda.  I was working in my office when I heard a noise from the bathroom.  Since Mooo! likes to sleep in the sink and run around in the bathtub, I didn’t think anything of it at first, but when I heard the noise a few more times I thought I’d take a look.  Bruce enjoys raiding trashcans when he can, so most of our smaller trashcans have pretty good lids on them.  Well Bruce had found a little bit of toiler paper sticking out of the trashcan so I guess he thought it’d be a fun idea to try to pull it out.  It wouldn’t come out though, so he ended up dragging the trashcan all the way across the bathroom and he kept tugging at it (as evidenced by the shreds of teepee lining a path from the trashcan’s normal resting place) until he got to the threshold.  He couldn’t get it over that, but when he tugged at the toilet paper, which wouldn’t come out, he’d lift up the back of it so it kept bumping the threshold and hitting the floor.

Then, as I was calling Amanda he thought maybe he could score something from the trashcan under my desk (which doesn’t have a lid and has been an easy target for him in the past).  I saw him sneaking up to it and said, “Bruce, no!” just as Amanda picked up on her end of the phone so I had to explain that to her too.

Zach Dotsey