I forgot to mention yesterday that a friend of mine from high school (and Amanda’s boss), Christa Mowbray (formerly Chris Schoch) and her husband Dave had a baby on Saturday. I don’t know the specifics such as time and size or anything, but I do know she was named Dlyan Savannah Mowbray. So welcome to the world, little Dylan.

Not much to talk about for today; boring week I guess. Kristen Barriner stopped by for half a second. I suppose I can’t say what she stopped by for in the extreme off chance that her boyfriend, Rob Peterson (whose birthday was yesterday; man, I forgot all kinds of mentions yesterday) reads this.

My cousin, Roger Dotsey, had a birthday yesterday too.  And Joel Freeman’s birthday was two days ago.  Happy belated birthdays, Joel Freeman, Roger Dotsey and Rob Peterson.
I met Amanda for lunch at J. Michael’s Deli, since I was picking up my paycheck near there anyway. I started using Quicken today to keep track of our finances. We’ve started putting part of our paychecks into savings now and we’re actually starting to bulid that up a little. We’ve got a few things we want to do, like install hardwood floors, and I want to get a Mac and some more camera equipment. There’s always more stuff, isn’t there?

I want to start investing my money more too. I do some through work now, but I figure if we can put a bit of money into savings with each paycheck, why not use some of that for something that will earn more than the crappy interest we get on the savings account?

Ahh money.

My good friend Jason Revill’s dog, Sally, died today. He said they could tell over the past few days that she didn’t have much longer, just because she would go out to the woods, trying to get herself away like animals often do when they know their time is coming. Here’s what Jason wrote in his My Space blog (Jason, if you want this removed, just let me know):

Well Sally, my 13 year old St. Bernard and Hound mix died around 6:30 this morning. Before you you think “awwww,” you should realize that the was a big dog (95 pounds) and for her to live as long as she did was amazing in and of itself. Besides, no dog can ask a better life than living with my family. She had more than enough room to run around on, and she had plenty of other animals of varying species to play with.

You really couldn’t get a better dog than Sally. She was the most gentle and patient large dog I’ve ever seen. At the same time, she was big and loud enough to keep strangers from snooping around, but she never attempted to snap or bite anyone ever, although I was hesitant to hand feed her anything simply due to the physical size of her mouth. She knew that she didn’t have to bite. By barking, anyone who didn’t need to be here wouldn’t stick around and those who were supposed to be here would befriend her. She was the bane of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but loved by the paper guy and the UPS man. Once, she ran off during a particularly bad thunderstorn and the paper guy left us a note asking what had happened to her. When he found out she was missing, he offered to look for her while he ran his route.

Sally was a great dog and she will be missed. Anytime it thundered outside she would come knocking at the door. A large clap of thunder just sounded and I got up expecting to hear her pawing at the door, but about halfway there I realized I wasn’t going to.

This seems to have been a rough year on pets, dogs in particular. Just makes me want to get Bruce and scratch his belly.

Adam called me today while shredding Army Reserves documents or some such. He and his girlfriend, Renee Sikes, saw Clerks II last night and he liked it. They were going to come over for dinner tonight, but they wouldn’t have been able to come until about 8:00, which in Adam Dotsey time is probably more like 8:30, so we rescheduled for Thursday around 6:30. On Friday he’s leaving to go to San Francisco for who knows how long with his friends Joe Runkle and Troy… you know, I don’t remember Troy’s last name.

Renee will be moving in with me and Amanda for a little while shortly. The money she gives us for that will be going to the Zach and Amanda Dotsey Hardwood Floor Fund.
While cleaning up Adam discovered that he had one of my Civilization IV discs. You see, months ago I leant his this game, a game I really, really like. I formatted my computer between the time he borrowed it and the time he returned it, and needed to reinstall it. Well, I could never find one of the discs, so I couldn’t reinstall it. I asked him a few times if he was sure he didn’t have the disc, and he looked but never saw it. The damn thing was in his closet, along with my Sim City 4, which I’d actually forgotten I let him borrow. For months I’ve been missing Civ IV. I get on bad Civilization kicks now and then, and I wasn’t able to scratch that itch. I can’t wait to get it back. I will finally be able to take a break from conquering the known Roman world with the Greeks in Rome: Total War.

I’m such a nerd.

Zach Dotsey
.