Amanda and I met her grandparents, Peggy and Earl Lemons, and her aunt, Anna Frazelle, at the mall for lunch today. Amanda’s cousin, Hannah, showed up too. Earl and I talked a bit of basketball while the lady-folk talked about something else.
I had called Elliot Clark yesterday on the way to Kyle and Lorin’s, just because it had been a while since we’d seen him and Melissa. He called me back this afternoon and we chatted for a bit. He has a new job lined up, which is awesome. It’s similar to what he’s doing now but with a little more responsibility, a tad less pay and hopefully less travel.
I also talked to Mike Davino, founder of SPMSportsPage.com, the site I took UNCW pictures for. The guy who was going to shoot the NCAA Women’s Final Four in Greensboro isn’t able to and he asked if I would want to. I’d have done it but I need a new lens for it. Plus it’s a big chunk of the day Sunday, which isn’t a huge deal, but it’s also Tuesday evening, and with Greensboro being about three hours away, it’d be a bit of an ordeal. Not that I’d mind too much but literally I need that new lens I want to get. I also just thought about another point: my boss, Scott, is going to be out of town all next week and I’d need about half a day to get to Greensboro and half a day to come back.
Even though we had small group tonight Michael came over right at 5:00 to shoot some hoops. Amanda told me not to get sweaty. Well, I did a little, but not too bad. She did tell me I was smelly when we were getting out of the car at McAllister’s for small group later though.
Michael beat me at all of our games of HORSE. I need to do some more behind-the-basket shots. I made two of those in a row the other day to beat him. I feel bad about taking shots I can make that I know he can’t, but then again he’s put me out of plenty of games doing that before. I almost beat him at a game of 21. I had 19 or 20 and he came back from way down to beat me. I did beat him in the rematch though, which was satisfying. That was the first time I beat Michael at 21.
Amanda and I headed off to McAllister’s for small group. When we got there were saw Polly Clawson and Wayne Harris. Polly was talking to Kristen, who was already there. Rob showed up, followed by Mike and Kaitlyn, who had just driven in from Jersey. We thought they were going to be late because they sent us a text message saying they’d just gotten onto I-40 in Raleigh at 5:21. Turns out they had gotten onto I-40 from I-95, which is well on this side of Raleigh. Silly Wisconsans and their lack of North Carolinian geographical knowledge!
Anyway, Elliot got there too. He’d been across the street running on the track at UNCW. he’s training for a 5K- good for him!
Everyone else, that would be Elliot’s wife, Melissa, and Kyle and Lorin, were stuck in terrible traffic. Somewhere apparently not too far down College and all the way back to somewhere between Shipyard and Monkey Junction the traffic was all backed up. Lorin told me when she called that Melissa was right in front of them. They ended up cutting down a side road and arrived a few minutes before Melissa.
Amanda and I both had potato soup in a bread bowl. It was yummy.
It was really nice having our whole small group all together tonight. I can’t recall how long it’s been since we’ve done that.
Amanda and I came home and watched Smallville then the American Idol results show. Jason Castro ended up being in the bottom three, but I think that was probably because of people assuming he was safe. Having that scare will probably help him going forward. Chikezie was the one who was voted off, which I think is a shame. He sang an R&B ballad last night, but his strength is in high energy performances. It’s a shame to see him go because I think that when he was doing an energetic performance that he was one of the most entertaining contestants.
Amanda went to bed after that and I played some more Mass Effect.
Zach Dotsey