I woke up this morning to Amanda yelling for me from downstairs. What a way to start a Halloween 2006.

There was a loud noise coming from somewhere inside the refrigerator and Amanda was afraid i was going to blow up or catch on fire. I ran downstairs wearing nothing but some of my new (very form-fitting) underwear, so once I got into the kitchen and started moving the fridge away from the wall, I made sure to stay on the side where my brother-in-law Michael Mercer, who also got up to see what was going on, wouldn’t be exposed to anything his sweet little mind couldn’t handle.

It turned out that there was a piece of tape or something attached to one of the fan blades. I took it off and plugged the fridge back in and it went right back to its nice normal quiet hum.

I got to do some work then headed out for a meeting. I was a little early for it though so I went by Manhattan Bagels, the one right before the Wrightsville Beach bridge. I thought I’d stop in and say hi to Mark, the owner, who is good friends with Amanda’s aunt (and just about everybody else around there), Anna Frazelle. He seemed to be meeting with somebody, but he did say hi and shake my hand.

My meeting went well. It was with a client we picked up not too long ago for whom I thought we’d be able to do a lot of work. I’ve just been needing some direction from them, but it looks like that should finally be forthcoming soon.

After that I was going to head over to The Connection Internet Cafe to do the final data entry interview, but I realized I didn’t have the sample list I was using for everyone so I went on home to get some work done. While I was at The Connection I noticed a lot of Port City Community Church people there. PC3 seems to have people anywhere you go, but the music staff was meeting there today so the church was represented a little more than usual even. I said hi to a few of the people I knew.

After a while I got up with the final interviewee. I should mention that she told me she was available all day and to give her a call when I was ready to meet with her. So at 4:00 I headed back over to The Connection and did the interview, which also went well.

I got back home, did a bit more work then lit up our jack o’ lanterns. I was about to play some StarCraft with my buddy Jason Revill when Amanda got home from a bit of a rough day at work. She was none too thrilled that I was going to be playing a video game, so I didn’t play long.

Mary, a lady who lives in our neighborhood and works with Amanda, told Amanda that they didn’t have very many trick or treaters last year. We had two bags and ran out pretty fast. I went up to Lowe’s Food to get a couple more bags of candy, but they didn’t really have any good bags of individually wrapped candy so I went over to the Eckerds and got some Kit Kats, Snickers and Smarties. When I got back Amanda said she had been trying to call me. It was taking me a while and she thought I was possibly getting some other groceries while I was out. They had run out of candy and Amanda had resorted to giving out snacks like the little packages of Oreos next to the kitchen sink. She was afraid that if I didn’t get back soon she’d have to give out the Peppermint Patties that she keeps in the freezer.

One kid had an outfit that made it look like he was riding an ostrich. His legs were the ostrich’s leg and there were fake legs hanging off the side. Spider-Man was, as he was last year, our last trick-or-treater. Or second to last; the little kids from across the street may have been our last trick or treaters.

I was talking to my boss, Scott Hendrix, this afternoon and asked him if his girls were going out trick or treating. He asked Addie, his older girl, what she was going out as and she said “A pumpkin patch.” Scott said, “No, you’re not going out as a pumpkin patch. You’re going as a butterfly.” He then explained to me that she was actually going to be wearing a fairy outfit, but because of the wings she called it a butterfly.
Other than that we watched House, which was the first episode after being preempted by the World Series for a few weeks. I ended up getting to play StarCraft with Jason after I watched Boston Legal. That’s about it. We didn’t dress up or go to a party or anything. Happy Halloween 2006.

Zach Dotsey
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