This week went by very fast it seems.
I had lunch with Mike Paschal, the guy who helps coordinate all the video production stuff for Port City Community Church. There was a production meeting, get together really, tonight, and we talked about that and other random things. We met at McAllister’s, which is right in front of Studio 3, one of the places the church uses. That was my first time eating at McAllister’s, and it was pretty good. I had a baked potato with bacon and cheese. The thing was friggin huge.
Paschal just recently bought a Blackberry from Ebay for about $50. Of course it’s only redoubled my desire to get one, much to Amanda’s chagrin. That’s another one that would be a cool name for a band; Amanda’s Chagrin.
Amanda’s been taking her lunch to work more often lately, and as a result she’s had some very short lunches so she took off an hour early today. Her mom, Karen Mercer, was in town visiting with her sister, Anna Frazelle. Anna is doing very well, by the way. She’s walked on the beach some and went to her daughter, Kirsten’s swim meet today. She broke her back a month ago jumping off a waterfall in Costa Rica.
Anyway, Amanda and Karen left to look at laptops for Amanda’s brother, Michael Mercer, who will be moving in with us in a couple of weeks when he transfers to UNC-Wilmington. I left a little while after they did to head to the production meeting. I got very frustrated on my way there. Amanda and I live off exit 420, which is the very last exit on I-40 (or the very first exit on I-40 I guess, depending on which way you’re going). I-40 empties onto College Road, which is one of the main stretches in Wilmington. It took me literally almost 20 minutes to get a couple miles down College to Martin Luther King Blvd. There was an accident for one thing, then the left lane, which is the one I was in in order to keep things clear for the accident, was backed up because so many people were turning left onto Martin Luther. I assume since it was a Friday evening they were all headed to Wrightsville Beach. The traffic is the only real downside to living in this town. Otherwise, I love it.
The production meeting, which was held at Studio 3, was pretty cool. They served Chick-Fil-A sandwiches (without pickles!) complete with a Chick-Fil-A brownie, and had some really good large, soft cookies left over from a lunch that had been ordered from McAllister’s. Mostly we went over some plans for improving the organization of what we do for the church, talked about things that would make the operation go more smoothly and let the camera people experiment with different angles and shots while a band led by Matt Blair practiced. There were about ten people there. I ended up talking a bit to one Scott Piner, who also directs (which is why I rarely see him) but is also a photography buff. Ben Lambeth’s brother was visiting, so he didn’t come tonight.
I got home around 9:30. Amanda and Karen had gone ahead and bought a laptop for Michael. They checked to see if Best Buy happened to get any more of the $400 HPs back in stock, but they had not, so they went to Circuit City and bought the Toshiba. I told them since it was a Toshiba to go ahead and get the service plan, because I’ve heard a lot about Toshiba’s messing up. Otherwise though, it’s just what Michael was looking for in a laptop. It’s got plenty enough speed for what he’ll mostly be using it for; internet, word processing, maybe e-mail, it’s small and it has a wide screen.
Amanda and Karen were watching some of Shark Week when I got home. One show that was coming on was The Sex Life of Sharks or some such. Amanda kept teasing about wanting to watch it, when I blurted out, “I don’t care about the sex life of sharks, I care about-” and then I stopped. I was going to say something about my own sex life, and Karen caught on to that because she laughed and asked if I’d forgotten my mother-in-law was there. Rather humorous, rather humorous.
Zach Dotsey