Memorial Day

I hope everyone remembered what today is about! God bless our troops and God bless America.

Not much to mention today, especially because it’s so late now…gonna make this short.

I slept until noon, at which point I got out of bed and joined my parents in the living room. We sat around for a while before starting to clean up the house a bit; I cleaned up the bathroom outside of my bedroom while my parents did cleaning elsewhere in the house. We did this until Granna and Poppa showed up for dinner – we fixed homemade hamburgers and watched the Rangers game in the living room. Blake showed up toward the end of the game (maybe even after it had finished), and Granna and Poppa left the house soon after. I then got out my copy of LEGO Indiana Jones 2 for my XBox 360 and played that for an hour or two before getting ready for bed.

And now, after having messed around on the computer for a while, I’m going to bed. Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

NIS

New iPhone Syndrome…my parents now have it. They both got brand new iPhone 4s today; about time!

Today wasn’t anything too special, but it was enjoyable. We woke up this morning and went to church, which was nice. Our normal preacher didn’t preach today, so the student minister did instead. I’ve known him (or at least his family) since I was 4 or 5, and I like him a lot, but his preaching isn’t always very focused. I still held to my word and took notes during the sermon, but I felt a bit guilty about it because I took the notes using the Notes app on my phone. I didn’t open anything during the service outside of the Notes, Scout’s honor, so that’s a plus.

After church was out, we joined with Granna and Poppa for lunch. We originally drove to Double Dave’s Pizza, only to find that it was out of business…disappointing. Not to be defeated, we decided on going to Chili’s instead, which is perfectly okay with me because they have the best queso ever, and their bacon burger today was exceptionally tasty. It was great!

We got home a bit before 2, thinking that Connor’s graduation party was around that time, but it turns out that it wasn’t until 5 this evening. Oops! Anyway, Blake left with a couple of friends to Austin at around 3 for State Solo and Ensemble Competition, and Mom, Dad, and I soon left for the AT&T store so that they could (finally!) get their phones upgraded. We then went to Best Buy to see if they had the case Mom wanted in a certain color, and I picked out some new headphones that I wanted (they have a mic, which is excellent; my old pair stopped working, unfortunately), and then we each left for our own parties: Mom and Dad for a coworker’s son’s, and me for Connor’s. It was lots of fun; of course, Andrew and Seth and Johnny were all there, plus there was catered Mexican food (fajitas, tamales, etc.), which was very good as well, PLUS cupcakes…very good cupcakes. I stayed until a bit after 8, at which point I went back home to walk through the iPhone a bit with my parents, helping them to set them up with their computers, etc. etc.

I left home again at around 9:20, picked up Andy from his house, and then the two of us headed out to Rockwall to see Kung Fu Panda 2 with Andrew, Seth, and Johnny. I loved the first one, but let me say this: I enjoyed this one even more. The animation is fantastic, the story is enjoyable, the characters are lovable, and it’s just an overall well-done film. I definitely recommend it! It was a great start to a summer full of movies.

Anyway, now I’m home, and everyone here is playing Words with Friends with each other…it’s quite amusing to hear nothing but tiles being dragged and dropped across the board on three separate devices.

And now, it’s time to go to bed. Happy Memorial Day everyone, and remember why we celebrate it – God bless our troops!

Chad

Graducated.

Hello everyone. Gonna try and make this a quick one; I’ve gone to bed early (by my standards) the past two nights, and I’m keen to keep the streak going.

As far as yesterday was concerned, I helped with Play Day at Beasley Elementary, my old school and the place where my mom still works in the office. This was my second year to help with Beasley’s Play Day, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

Blake and I were awake soon enough to be at the school before 8, at which point we received our assignments and reported to our areas. There were other volunteers, both adults and high school students. Blake, his best friend Daniel, a teacher’s daughter, and I were in charge of the races, but I’m not gonna lie: I pretty much did all of the work. The first groups of the day were the kindergarden through third graders (the younger kids), which were lots of fun. First, we had the girls from each grade line up by classes, run the 40-yd dash, and get prizes for 1st through 3rd place. Then, the guys would repeat, and back to the girls with the 80-yd dash.

We had each group for 35-40 minutes, which is a LOT of time of just running, so I struggled with finding things for them to do to pass the time, especially when it came to the 6th graders…they were awful. They’re a bunch of punks who wouldn’t shut up long enough for me to tell them what to do, and once I got them focused long enough to do the activity, they breezed right through it in ten minutes and then lost interest, so a lot of their time was spent playing with footballs or soccer balls or whatever else they had brought for themselves.

The first graders were probably my favorite group of the day because of the teacher involvement: one of the teachers, Mrs. Cook, has been a Poteet band chaperon in the past, so I know her pretty well, and her, along with the other two first grade teachers, stood at the starting line to cheer on each student of their class individually. It was awesome. Once the kids had done their thing, I asked the kids “who wants a teacher race?!”, to which they all started chanting “teacher race!” until the teachers participated. They were so much fun.

For lunch, I picked up Blake, Daniel, Mom, a couple office workers, and me lunch from Chick-Fil-A, which was excellent, and then I went and got Mom and I Sonic drinks. After the day was over and Blake and I had helped to clear the fields of equipment, I got home, took a shower (I had worn sunscreen the second half of the day and it was gross), watched Criminal Minds for a couple of hours (all-day marathon, woohoo!), and then I mowed both the front and back lawns for my parents. I had originally planned on mowing the lawn, finding a quick dinner in the house, and then going to Braum’s for a milkshake, but I fell asleep in my dad’s recliner until my parents came home from a dinner at the Coulson’s house. I still fixed a quick dinner, but then I made my own homemade milkshake instead of going out to buy one. Then I took my second shower of the day and went straight to bed, falling asleep by 12:30. It was lovely.

Today, I slept until 11:30, got dressed, grabbed some Poptarts, and then headed out to Poteet’s graduation, ticket courtesy of Johnny “Puerto Rican” Sanchez. I met up with Andrew in the parking lot (Johnny gave him a ticket too), so we sat together. Regan soon joined us, and, funny enough, Johnny’s mom happened to sit just down the row from us by sheer coicidence…that’s not a small room, so what are the odds?! Anyway, Mrs. Henrie’s speech was rather weak this year, if I may say so, but the overall ceremony was nice and very short. I got pictues of a copule of people crossing the stage, namely Connor and Johnny, texting the pictures to them. After the ceremony, Andrew and I made sure to find both of them before leaving.

Once we had all gotten back to Mesquite, to the school, we headed out to IHOP for lunch, which was very strange to me…4 in the afternoon seems to me to be a VERY odd time to eat at IHOP. I’ve only eaten there in the mornings or in the evenings in the past, so mid-afternoon was different. I ended up getting the CinnaStack pancake combo, which was very nice, and I got to talk with Kyle Wisdom for a bit again, which is always a pleasure. I love the kid…my Lefou!

We came home after eating, where I basically just lounged around and watched TV for a while. It was pleasant.

Anyway, tomorrow I have church in the morning and then Connor’s graduation party in the afternoon that I plan on attending, plus an evening movie with a few friends (Kung Fu Panda 2!!!), so I better go to sleep…before 1 yet again! I’m on a roll! (knock on wood)

Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

The longest day ever.

In a good way, believe me. However, I am completely exhausted, so I’m going straight to sleep. I’ll update you all tomorrow! Goodnight!

Chad

Rock candy and jellybeans.

Still not too much to talk about today, but I’ll make this as lengthy as I can.

I first woke up this morning at 9:45 before my first alarm, but I decided to stay in bed, with my alarms keeping me from sleeping too late; I set alarms in 15 minute increments, and today they ran from 9:45 to noon…hey, it’s summer!

Once I woke up, I grabbed some Pop-tarts for breakfast/lunch and started watching some TV, starting with Fresh Prince, moving on to Ed, Edd, ‘n’ Eddy, and finishing off with the latest episode of NCIS. From there, I left the house and drove up to Target, where I applied for a job…if the Half-Price Books job doesn’t go through, I have the Target one to fall back on, but I’m not finished: I plan on applying to a few other places. We’ll see.

I grabbed Blake and I a couple of drinks from Sonic before heading home. Once I got home, we played Portal 2 co-op (his first time) on his XBox, and I quickly discovered that I hadn’t played all of the levels like I thought I had. It was fun.

Granna and Poppa came over fairly soon after Mom and Dad had gotten home for the day. Poppa had brought my car back from their house, since he had taken it to their house in Terrell to place in their barn because of the storms on Tuesday after they had taken Andrew and me to the airport. He ended up fixing most of the back of my car (remember, someone had hit the back of my car in the parking garage at Tech), with the only exceptions being a narrow strip of paint that had been scraped off and the big chrome piece that will have to be completely replaced. I already told you in person, but thank you Poppa!

We all went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse as a belated celebration of Mom’s birthday, which I only tolerated because of their bread and cinnamon butter. However, we ran into one of my two oldest friends, Kelly, who works there now. Our waiter allowed her to take over and serve us, and it was amusing because her mother and her new husband were sitting at another table nearby eating dinner as well…what a coincidence! It was nice having someone we knew as our wait tress because it guaranteed good service and because we got to talk to her and catch up whenever we had the chance.

After we had finished eating, we all went back home, where we had cake and ice cream and Blake and I finished playing through Portal 2’s co-op mode, which I loved. Portal 2 is definitely in my list of top 5 games, along with the original Portal, both Uncharted games, and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Now, I’m about to legitimately go to bed (a bit early for me) because I am helping with play day at my mom’s school (my old elementary school) in the morning, starting at 8am. Goody.

Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

I am disappoint.

Not much happened today, but I’ll try and explain what happened yesterday.

So, if you didn’t know, Andrew and I were supposed to leave for Disney World yesterday morning at 6:50am. Unfortunately, American Airlines canceled all of their morning flights from DFW the evening before in anticipation of bad weather, so we moved to a 3:40pm flight with US Airways that would take us to Charlotte, North Carolina, connecting with another flight that would take us to Orlando. We arrived at the airport at 1 to get our tickets and to go through security, which all went fine, and, after an hour and a half wait, it was time to board. We got in line, but when we scanned our tickets the machine gave an error message. Apparently, American Airlines hadn’t transferred our flight info, so we weren’t allowed on the plane until the issue was resolved. We called American Airlines and told them what was going on, and, after they had worked on it for a few minutes, we tried again. Mine worked, but Andrew’s still didn’t have the information, so we called again and got Andrew’s ticket number, which is what US Airways needed. However, the guy didn’t let us on the plane; the gate door had just closed, and, despite the fact that the plane didn’t leave until a good 15 minutes after that point in time, he refused to let us board the plane, offering to put us on the next flight out. We said okay, but when the lady who was there searched for a flight we could take, she found that there was nothing we could take that day.

Frustrated, we called American Airlines again, explaining to them what had happened, and they responded by putting us on a flight directly into Orlando at 8:15pm later that night. It would make it a late night for us, but as long as we got there that day we would be fine. We had 5 hours of waiting to do, so the two of us bought two large bags of candy to snack away our troubles with. We sat and watched Toy Story 3 before getting dinner at McDonald’s. Unfortunately, the longer we waited, the later our flight got delayed due to advancing bad weather. Soon after 8 or so, the sirens inside the airport started to go off, reporting dangerous weather conditions in the immediate vicinity of the airport. We had to move away from the large glass windows looking out at the airstrip because of high winds, possible tornadoes, and hail. This lasted for at least an hour, and, soon after the “all-clear” was given, our flight was canceled…we were rather depressed. At this point in time, we had been at the airport for more than nine hours, and, by the time my dad got through the bad weather to pick us up, it had been eleven hours.

Andrew’s parents called American Airlines at 11:30pm to try and get a transfer to an early flight this morning, but, after four and a half hours of waiting on hold (yes, that puts them at 3:30am), I was called by Andrew to tell me that we couldn’t find anything reasonable and were canceling the trip. HOWEVER, we will be making a second attempt in July. So pray that that goes well.

Today, I stayed in bed until 4:30pm, only getting up twice to take Blake to graduation music rehearsal with the band and to pick him up…this was partially fueled by both depression and the need to re-coop from a long day of stress and waiting. We went to Jessica Kath’s viewing once Dad had gotten home, and then we got dinner before heading back home, where we watched an episode of Criminal Minds.

And now, I am done. Hopefully tomorrow’s post won’t be as depressing…there’s few things more heartbreaking than a canceled trip to Disney World. Anyway, goodnight, everyone. Sleep well!

Chad

Terrible horrible no good very bad day.

Today’s not worthy of a full post.

Original flight cancelled. Weren’t allowed on the second flight due to airline mistakes. Third flight cancelled due to weather problems. Thus, I’m at home instead of in Orlando. Hoping for an early flight in the morning. Please pray.

Goodnight, everyone.

(Frustrated) Chad

Delayed.

Mine and Andrew’s 6:50am flight out to Orlando in the morning has been canceled due to weather issues. American Airlines originally wanted to move us to a flight that would leave Wednesday at noon, but that’s far too late; we’re already missing a day at Disney because of this. Mrs. Grant looked around for another flight that we could transfer to, and she found a 3:30 flight tomorrow that goes to Charlotte, North Carolina, which connects to a flight to Orlando…we’ll get there around 9pm. At least we’ll get there before Wednesday, and we’ve already come up with an adjusted schedule. Not too much of a problem, but a bit of a disappointment. Granna is taking us to the airport tomorrow at around noon so that we can get there early enough. Viva la Disney!

I woke up this morning and typed out a flyer to give to the Kimbrough horn players, but I ended up not giving them out because of their current teacher’s plans to teach over the summer…drat. But playing for them went well, however short my time with them was, but no biggie. It’s funny; with the eighth graders, there’s only two currently signed up to be in the band at Poteet next year, so I made each of the ones not signed up explain to me why they weren’t. Two of them are trying to, but they have possible schedule conflicts…here’s hoping they work it out!

From there, I went home and took a short nap, and then I just hung around the house. I watched an episode or two of Criminal Minds, and I watched the film version of Leave It to Beaver; I’ve never watched the TV show before, but the movie wasn’t completely terrible, so that’s a plus. When Mom and Dad left to go eat dinner with the Newmans, Blake and I went to Cici’s for dinner, and then we went back home, where I resumed my Criminal Minds spree and worked on a personal project: I took a couple of old foam earplugs, putting a hole through the center of them, and then supergluing them onto my ear bud headphones for extra comfort and additional noise cancellation. I got the idea from Jordan Flanigan, who was bragging about his new foam earphones the other day, so I figured, why not make my own? They work brilliantly.

Anyway, I’m about to get my clothes and things together for tomorrow’s trip; I just put a bunch of Disney movies on my iPad for the flight! Gotta make sure to have a good book or two as well since they’ll be two decently lengthy flights.

Goodnight, everyone! Don’t expect any posts until maybe Friday night, Saturday night for sure, but I still may be able to give you quick updates during the night. We’ll see! Pray for safe travels!

Chad

POWERBLOGGING

Only 20 minutes until my laptop battery dies, and I don’t feel like getting out the power cord…thus, the powerblogging.

I set alarms this morning an hour before I had to be awake for church, just to make sure that, when the time I came and my parents came in my room to get me up, I didn’t fight them because I had already been awake. Score one for Chad! We stopped at the donut shop on our way to Forney, where I saw a friend from high school, and then we were at the church. Brother Jimmy’s service today was really good. I enjoyed it a lot and walked away with some good stuff. I decided that I need to try and start taking notes during the preacher’s sermon, just so that the message is better absorbed. I’ll try to remember that next week.

After church, we ate with Poppa and Granna at a local fish place, which was really good (I mixed in Louisiana Hot Sauce with my ketchup; yummy). From there, we split paths, with us going home and getting ready to go to Becca’s graduation party. We didn’t stay for all that long, but I got to talk with Kyle Wisdom and Johnny for a while, which was nice. We left after an hour or so, give or take, and we went back home to drop Mom off. Dad, Blake, and I went to Granna and Poppa’s house to help Poppa install a new sink in their kitchen. I sat around watching TV most of the time, helping when I was asked to; I watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (which was pretty good; I’ve seen it before, and it used to be one of my most-checked-out books as a child), and then I switched to Criminal Minds. One of the episodes was a two-part episode, 2 hours long total, which was probably the most depressing episode I’ve seen yet, and it ended on a real cliffhanger…probably a season finale. Granna got us all Subway for dinner (first time I’ve had it since coming home, I think).

Tomorrow, I visit Kimbrough to play for the middle school horn players. That should be fun!

Anyway, it’s late and Mom wants me in bed, so I’ll talk to you all later. Disney is within reach! Goodnight.

Chad

P.S. – I read a lot of Michael Caine’s autobiography today, and it’s very good. I respect him even more now than I already did: he’s been married to the same woman since 1973, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t drink to get drunk, and he just seems like such a lovable old guy. I need to read his first biography too, from back in the early 90s. I recommend this one for now: The Elephant to Hollywood. Check it out!

P.P.S. – Mr. Kath’s (the Poteet percussion director) niece Jessica passed away this morning. She’s been dealing with bad health problems all her life, and she is now finally at peace in Heaven. Pray that her family remains strong! I wish I could have a full “Remembering Jessica Kath” post, but I didn’t know her very well.

Give ’em the evil look!

Not much to talk about today.

As I said in yesterday’s post, today was the first day since I’ve come home from Tech that I’ve been able to sleep as late as I wanted, so I was in bed until Mom and Dad called at 12:30 to make sure that I turned off the house alarm, lest the loud sirens go off as soon as they get the door open. I climbed out of bed and disabled the alarm, crawling back in bed. They got home shortly after, I said hi, and then I fell asleep for just a while longer, finally waking up at 2ish. However, I stayed in bed for a while longer after that reading through missed tweets and such on my phone.

When I finally officially got out of bed and got dressed, I ate the remaining three slices of pizza from Cici’s for lunch and then just hung around with Mom and Dad in the living room. At around 5:15ish, we started to get ready to go to Terrell to eat dinner with Granna and Poppa as a belated birthday celebration for Granna (how belated? Her birthday was May 4th). We ate at a place in Terrell called Cole Mountain, I believe, where I got fried shrimp and French fries to eat. The adults all got the “famous” chicken-fried steak, and Blake also ordered the fried shrimp.

After we had all eaten, we went to Granna and Poppa’s house for a couple of hours. Mom and Granna sat around and talked during this time, but the guys all sat in the living room and watched the last bit of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on ABC Family. I think it’s awesome that they put the deleted scenes from the DVDs in their places for people to see; honestly, I’ve never watched the deleted scenes for 3, 4, and 5, I think (I think I MAY have seen the ones for 3 and 5 before, but I don’t remember). We also ate a bit of cake that we had bought at Kroger before coming to Terrell.

We left Poppa and Granna’s house just after 11, and now we’re home, about to get in bed so we’re not exhausted in church tomorrow. That being said, goodnight, everyone. Sleep well!

Chad