My days off are turning out to still be rather productive for me. There's always been something in my personality that has told me, "If you're not busy working on something, then you're not doing anything worth your time". It's hard for me to want to relax. I find that I generally have to run myself completely down before I even want to stop, and even then it's only because I have to. I'm working to improve this about myself. I'm not perfect. Although I am pretty close. Just kidding.

So, part of not really caring about a "day off" was the whole "what's the point of not doing anything for a day" mentality. I mean, what difference did it make to anyone else whether or not I chose to take a break?

Anyway. More on that later as I think about it.

I stayed up late last night even though I was feeling tired when I came home from Dan's party. I ended up going back to the church around 11:45pm. There was some kind of AARP Driver's Education class in there or something today and they needed a lapel microphone. My friend Bob Milks had asked me if I could get one in there for him to use since he was teaching the class. The only good working lapel we had was one of the additional wireless units in the worship center. We bought two new wireless units back in August to enhance our capabilities in the Worship Center, but find that we don't really use one of them on a regular basis. A few weeks ago, I had Andrew take the one we don't use regularly out of the rack so that I could keep it reserved for video productions, since it's handy to have a wireless lapel microphone every now and then. Of course, we needed it this past Sunday since we had 10 singers all on stage at the same time, so Andrew had to put it back in the rack.

I came in and got the microphone out of the rack. Then, I promptly got distracted playing around on the piano for about 20 minutes, and then went and found the wireless lapel belt back. I looked in a few places since it wasn't where I thought it would be and finally found it buried in the bottom of the wireless microphone box we keep at the sound board. I took the unit upstairs to Room 202 (where the event was), and set it up on the board up there. I found the entire sound system still on, which wasn't really surprising because even though I tell everyone to turn it off, it gets left on all of the time. The amps will probably give out one day as result, but there isn't much I can do about that if people don't follow procedure. I'll admit, I've left it on a few times myself, but usually I end up going back upstairs (and sometimes, on occasion, driving all the way back when I've already gone home) when I remembered that I left it on.

After testing the microphone and setting the levels (while singing "In the Sweet By and By" in my old-school Gospel singing voice which is quite spectacular), I turned off the system and went home. I ended up staying up so late watching tv that I felt sick. I managed to catch up on my sleep during the night though. I tossed and turned and woke up a lot, but still got some pretty decent sleep. I woke up around 10:45 feeling refreshed. I laid in bed for a while reveling in the fact that I didn't really have to do much today.

My dad called me a little while later to see what time I'd be coming out to the house. We made plans last week to move a refrigerator from my parents' house to the house that we're moving into. I don't know what happened to the "old" fridge in the house, but it's gone. I told him I'd be at the house a little bit after 1pm.

I got dressed and headed out from my apartment around 12:30. I stopped by the McDonald's near my parents' house on the way to get some lunch, and later remembered why I don't like eating from there. I gave some of my food to the cat that I like at my parents' house, and even she wouldn't eat it, which is probably a bad sign.

My dad had just finished painting the hood for the oven from the house, which was good because it looked terrible before the paint-job. I looked at that while walking around holding my McDonald's fries (oh yeah, I'm eating fries again) and drink. My dad backed his truck up to the back porch, and I got out the handtrucks and we put the fridge on the truck. I thought it'd be better to lay the fridge down flat, but my dad thought it'd be better to let it stand up tall. I wasn't the one doing the driving, so I really didn't care that much.


I did take some pics while we were driving. I was supposed to stay behind my dad the entire time in case something happened. I'll be honest, the idea of "something happening" and me being behind the truck to help take care of the issue wasn't exactly appealing, because the only thing I could think of that would happen would be the fridge falling out and, you know, impaling my Trailblazer. And me. And my strapping good looks. And I'd probably spill my drink in the process too.

A few times, I got up beside my dad to take pictures of him driving. Yes, I was driving and doing this at the same time, but I think I've already covered my opinion on the safety issues. I still remained relatively focused on my primary task (driving).


We took a different route to the house than I would normally take, although it was probably quicker. My parents have always called this route, "through the country". We used to go to my grandparents house (which will soon be "my house") all the time, at least once a week growing up and always took this route when coming from Piedmont. "Through the country" basically means driving on Highway 86 through downtown Piedmont (which takes about 30 seconds, haha) and then staying on Highway 86 until it hits W. Georgia Road until you end up in Simpsonville.

When we got to the house, I parked on the street (well, on the cul-de-sac) and my dad backed his truck down the driveway so we could unload the fridge at the carport (fancy way of saying garage without walls). Of course, in backing into the carport, I think he forgot that the fridge was taller than the roof of the carport. Oops. He pulled forward to see if he had hit something and started to back up again and I pointed out the fridge was sticking up like a foot taller than the roof. It dented the fridge slighty but the house was fine.

I got up in the bed of the truck to get the fridge down. Of course, I stood up as I got in the back of the truck, forgetting again that the carport roof was low since I was standing on the truck. I hit my head on the roof. Hard. It hurt like the dickens, although I'm not sure where that phrase came from. I can only surmise that Charles Dickens used to hurt a lot of people. Probably with his less than stellar writing. I'm just kidding. I don't know anything about Charles Dickens. What larks, Pip. What larks.

We got the fridge out and checked out where it was supposed to fit before bringing it inside.


As we brought the fridge inside, it was a tight fit against the door and we scratched up the front of the fridge pretty good since we had left the key inside the deadbolt. Of course, we almost broke the key off in the door in the process. Oh well.

After getting the refrigerator inside, we also put the oven hood back up. That took a little bit of manuevering but we got it. I held it up and used a drill to put the screws back in place, and then stripped the wires and let my dad reconnect them. Before leaving the house, we decided to look around the back of the house. There's an old tool shed in the back yard which I was pretty much convinced was just full of old junk and buckets. I was pretty close. Nothing of real value in there.

As my dad was getting ready to leave, he asked if there was anything from my apartment that I wanted to bring over to the house while he had his truck out. At this point, I'm pretty much ready to bring over whatever I don't want to use at my apartment anymore, which is a lot of furniture and electronics. The house isn't really secured yet (we are waiting for blinds to be installed) and there is a key hidden on the property somewhere (can't quite tell you where that is, now can I?) so my parents advised me not to bring over anything valuable just yet. I hold a loose opinion on what is "valuable" that I own... since most things are just that--things, but I suppose it is a good idea to be smart about my investments.

We ended up coming to my apartment and taking over a table from my bedroom and the coffee table from the living room. Kind of random but that was it. On the way to the apartment, I made a few phone calls. I'm shooting an event at Rolling Greens on Saturday (yep, Singles Awareness Day). It's some kind of assisted living home and they're hosting a Valentine's Love Cruise or something. My aunt works there as the transportation director and asked me to come shoot the event. At this point, I don't really know if I'm getting paid, but I don't really care. It gives me something to do on what would otherwise be a dull Saturday evening.

I also called my friend Gewan to see if I could borrow his DSLR battery grip for the event. He has the exact same digital SLR camera as me (the Canon Rebel XTi) so we are always trading and borrowing accessories.

After my dad and I unloaded the tables at the house, he went home and I went back to my apartment. I got back just before 5pm. Tim was sitting around watching tv. I asked him how his day was as I laid on the couch watching tv with him. My assistant at the church, Andrew, called me to see if I had dinner plans, which I rarely do. Even before he said it, I knew the place to eat would be Oriental House. We're both nuts about that place. I brought Tim along with me and we met Andrew at 5:30pm for dinner.

Andrew writes a blog almost-daily like I do. Some would argue that I am his muse since I do write every day and he didn't start up his blog until after he met me. It's always a little weird when we get together because we talk about our blogs and when I ask "so what did you do today", I know I'm going to read about it in detail in the blog later, which can make for some boring in-person conversation.

Dinner was fantastic. Tim didn't talk much at dinner. I had some General Tso's chicken, and either it was particularly spicier tonight, or my tolerance for spicy food was particularly lower, but it was great. A little sweating never hurt anybody. Tim and Andrew sat on the same side of the booth, which was good because one of my favorite things to do after eating in a restaurant when sitting in a booth is to turn sideways and stretch my legs out on the bench in the booth. Sometimes I prop up one knee and rest my arm on it while talking. It's my "I'm comfortable with my social setting and the people around me" pose. If I don't do it with you when we eat, well, assume what you will from that.

Tim and I came home after dinner. I sat around on the couch for a while surfing the internet while Tim watched some tv. I really didn't do much for the rest of the evening. I tried to experiment making my own bokeh hood for my DSLR, but I don't have the right kind of lens to do it, I think. I had some interesting results but I think I'm going to have to just get a standard 50mm lens to do it, which is good because I've been wanting to get one for portraits anyway.


So, that was my day. Not super exciting, but I got some things done and still found it relaxing. I'm looking forward to coming in to work tomorrow refreshed and ready to tackle projects. I've got a few goals set for what I want to accomplish tomorrow. Let's see how many of them I can get done.

Later,

Joe