Last night I found out how to make ring tones for the iPhone, so when someone calls me now I get to hear a snippet of M79 by Vampire Weekend.
I bought my wetsuit today, but it was a long process getting to that point.
Amanda and I got up, took our time getting ready then went out to do some running around. Mainly we were buying gifts for Barry Frazelle, who turns fifty tomorrow. We were going to get him a gift card to Outback and the new Killers CD, but it turns out that the CD doesn’t come out for another two weeks. We ended up buying him The Shack, a book we bought for ourselves and promptly let Amanda’s brother Michael Mercer borrow. We’ve heard a lot of good things about it though.
As we were pulling into the driveway I got a call from my oldest friend, Jason Revill. He told me that he’d been excited that a Duke football game was finally coming on a local station, but that there had been tornadoes in Wilson and the station had been showing coverage of it nonstop since at least 9:00 and they were pre-empting the game with this pointless coverage. Not to debase the value of the two lives that were lost, but how much can you talk about a couple tornadoes? Apparently a lot. Jason said there was a message on the screen that said you could catch the game on a couple Time Warner Cable channels, but Jason has satellite TV, so that didn’t do him any good.
I don’t see the point in not showing a local college football game in favor of something that happens, if not all the time, not irregularly, especially in that area. I was planning on watching the game anyway, so I walked in and sure enough, it was on for me, which I think further added to Jason’s frustration. Really a bad move, in my opinion.
Amanda’s parents, Phil and Karen Mercer, came over. Amanda and Karen went out to look at fabric for furniture for the sunroom Karen and Phil just added onto their house while Phil and I had a beer or two and watched Clemson whoop up on my poor Blue Devils. The final score was 31-7. Amanda showed back up at the house sans Karen just as the game finished. I’d been getting a little antsy to get going because I wanted to pick up my wetsuit and go give it a try since Barry said the waves should be good today and Lars was heading out there as well.
Amanda came back without Karen because Karen was taking forever deciding on the fabric she wanted. It didn’t make sense for me and Phil to drive separate plus Amanda had the credit card, which I needed in order to get the wetsuit. We went by Outback (it wasn’t open when we went out earlier) then picked Karen up. We had to stop by Barnes & Noble too, because Karen was going to get Barry a gift card from there, but she also wanted to get him a card so we dropped Karen off at Hallmark at Mayfaire and Amanda and Phil got the gift card.
We finally got out to Wrightsville Beach at I guess about 4:30. Michael was already there and he and I went out to the beach to check out the surf, but Lars was on his way back in. He hadn’t been out too long but said he’d spent most of his time trying to get out and drifting down the beach. I could tell he was pretty beat.
We went back to the Frazelle house. Lars cleaned up, hung around for a few then left. Michael and I joined his grandfather, Earl Lemons, in watching a Carolina-Maryland football game. Barry’s parents arrived and his dad joined us in watching that game and the Carolina-Penn basketball game. The Tar Heels lost the football game (yay!) but won the basketball game (boo!).
Anna had fixed a great dinner and we tried to eat out back, but the wind was kind of cold so half the people there (aside from the previously mentioned people, Anna and Barry’s girls, Hannah and Kirsten, were there, as well as Hannah’s boyfriend, Christian Black) ate inside. We had dessert then Barry opened presents while Dora the Explorer was on TV. Michael and I had been talking about that show and it just happened to be on, so we decided to subject everyone else to it.
We left after a little bit, Amanda, Phil, Karen and I. Karen and Phil left back for Richlands pretty soon after we got back to our place then Amanda and I watched a little TV before she headed upstairs for bed.
Seth Holloman and his dad are going to the Duke-Rhode Island basketball game tomorrow and Seth invited me to ride along. Sadly, I don’t know if I can swing the price of a ticket right now. We’re a bit strapped this week.
Zach Dotsey
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