You know me, I love Thanksgiving, but this year was the best one ever. Well maybe not since my brother is in Iraq, but it was great none the less. We took a whirlwind trip this year and it was great.

Ocala was nice. My grandparents house borders a large horse farm and the mares were out in the afternoon. I carried JonMichael over to the fence and after some coaxing we got them to come see us. I might have some pictures of this in a few days.

Orlando was great, aside from paying $4 in tolls to drive about 10 miles. Haven't seen my grandma in years and she's never met Audra and the kids. She's wonderful and since she raised 5 boys by herself it was easy to relax and let the kids play because she doesn't worry that her stuff will get messed up. An added surprise to this visit was when we found out that some of our family from Scotland were in the States for vacation, or "holiday" as they called it. They stopped by and we had a great time with them. They've told me before and said it again that if we ever go to Scotland then everything(aside from the plane ticket) will be free because we will stay, eat, and travel with family. I'd love to go someday.

From there we went back to my parent's house in Palatka. Great time there, best visit home we've ever had. JonMichael and I went with dad to see him fly his RC airplane, then drove to the airport in time to see the skydivers touch down, then went to see his real plane. JonMichael had a blast with all that. We went to church with them yesterday and got to see some old friends. After church dad took me for a ride in his '81 Corvette and then let me drive. He told me to get on it and have fun so I did. 1 word - wow. You can't drive a car like that and not have a silly grin on your face, it's just not possible.

We usually take off the day before Thanksgiving for the big trip but this year we're waiting until first thing in the morning. It's just gonna work out better that way for the kids. We're also getting a hotel this year to save on some driving, that's new too. Heading out in the wee hours to go to Ocala, then to Orlando on Friday morning, Palatka Friday night, and back home on Sunday. I'm acutally really excited about it. Thanksgiving is the only time of year we see my whole side of the family, and there's not too many of us, so it's important. Everyone always asks us if we rotate holidays between our families but we don't. Thanksgiving is always with mine since that's the only time they all get together, and Christmas is always with Audra's side. What do you guys do? Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Last night we had a dinner at church, followed later by the community Thanksgiving service. After dinner I was up in my office hanging out with some students when a few children came up. They like me, I like them. They asked if they could play my Atari.

"Mr. Michael, can we play your Atari?"

"Sure, just be careful with it because it's like 3 times older than you guys are."

One kid responds, "Yeah well I bet my dog is older."

After a few seconds I say the only thing that comes to mind, "Oh.................ok."

Got a service project today with the students, it's always interesting to see who will show up for something like this. They'll talk like they're all excited and that everyone is gonna be there, then something often "comes up" for them or "it's been on my calendar for weeks!" Funny how nothing ever seems to interfere with their ironclad schedules when we go do something fun.

I'm not a video game freak so I wouldn't know about such things, but somebody be sure to tell me the next time a major video game system is coming out! I want to be one of those who camps out at Best Buy so I can get one and then double my money on ebay the next week.

One thing I hate doing is writing an article for our church's newsletter each month. I don't read what the other guys write so I have a hard time imagining that anyone really wants to read what I write. Except for old ladies perhaps. Well I cheated this time, I just emailed in the letter that I wrote for December of last year. I save them each month and all I did was copy and paste. Word for word, it's exactly the same. I know it's bad, but I'm laughing as I type this.

Many of you know that I'm big into the Dave Ramsey plan for financial fitness. We're just about to finish up Baby Step 3 and I was trying to find out just where I wanted to put my big emergency fund. He recommends a money market account that has no penalties for taking money out(like most CD's will). I'd heard about PayPal's money market and that it was earning just over 5% APY right now so I signed up for it, it was simple. You know how easy it is to transfer money into and out of Paypal, that money that sits there will earn twice the interest that a regular savings account will, pretty nice. Well then I started searching online about people who've used that and it works fine unless you sell something on ebay and someone files a complaint against you. Whether it's legit or not, your account will be frozen for a month or more until they get things straightened out. If I've got an emergency I can't wait that long to get my money, so that would not be wise for me.

So I started searching for different high interst online money market savings accounts. That's a mouthful. I'm reading up on AmTrust Direct, IMG Direct, GMAC Bank, there's a bunch of them. They're simple to use, very liquid, and you can get over 5% with some of them right now. Worth checking into, I know I'll be signing up soon.

I went to the soccer game last night. They had a very nice memorial for Sam just before the game started and I wanted to be there for that, but I had been meaning to go to a game soon anyway. Let me tell you, it was quite a surprise, I was actually really into it! I've never watched soccer before, aside from the occasional World Cup game like everyone else. It was so good! Maybe it helped that I had a team to pull for and that I knew the players. I couldn't wait to get to my office this morning to pull out the schedule and see when the next game was that I could go to.

Oh yeah, it helped that we won 4-1.

A senior from our local high school was killed in a car wreck last Thursday night. Awful situation, a 17 year old kid on his way to see his girlfriend. He was a big soccer player, #11. Some of the soccer guys got mohawks at the start of the season, just to be bad boys. He was one of them, so now all the other's are sporting mohawks as well. Most of the girl's team had a small section of hair shaved with 11 cut into it so that you can only see it if their hair is in a ponytail but you don't notice a thing if it's down. They want to feel connected, united, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Today I was hanging out with the soccer players at lunch and noticed there were a lot of kids missing. The guys told me that there were a lot of people behind the curtain on stage...getting mohawks. Some of them were aggrevated, and I can understand where they're coming from. Not only that, but there were girls getting the patch done. They were aggrevated because some of these were kids who really didn't know Sam, they just wanted to be cool too.

So am I. Christmas time's a coming, what do you want this year? I usually ask for 1 big thing, or I ask for money so that I can get that 1 big thing. This year I want a deer rifle. What about you?

Oh and good news RyanG, Walmart employees are going to be allowed to say Merry Christmas this year if they want. So you can rest easy.

The other night I wanted chocolate milk, but we were out of milk, so I tired chocolate water. There's a reason it hasn't caught on, trust me.

If you haven't seen Cars, you're missing out! We got it for JonMichael the other day when it came out and I've watched it several times already, one of the best ever.

Polls closed at 7PM on Tuesday, I made it in at 6:30. They say if you don't vote then you've got no right to complain...well I earned my right! Even had the sticker to prove it but I gave it to JonMichael, who in turn gave it to the dog, who in turn chewed it up.

We got our first DVD from Netflix yesterday, the first disk of season 1 of 24. Audra called when it came and it was all scratched up, she couldn't even play the thing. Tried cleaning it, no good. I reported it on the website and they're supposed to send out another one. Dang, it had to be on the very first one too.

This is my second week being in the gym, M-W-F @ 6am.  I've pretty much figured out who the regulars are, there are only a few at that hour.  My workout is specific and there's an obvious pattern to everything I do each morning.  I move fast, always doing 2 excercises at a time - when I'm resting from 1 I'm doing another, then a 30 second rest.  It's funny to me though how these other guys go about their workout.  I haven't been able to make out any discernable pattern to what they do.  They pull on this for a set, tug on that 4 or 5 times, move over to something they can sit down on for 5 minutes...  Mostly they just talk and shuffle around.  And these aren't old guys either, we're talking 30-40.  The gym opens at 6am which is when I get there.  Sometimes they're there at 6, other times it's not till 6:15 or later, but they're always gone by 6:45.  In an hour I've busted my butt and gotten a total body workout and they've hung out and worked an arm.  Listening to them talk it sounds like they've been members for years, but they're still out of shape.  That's a lot of money to spend just to be able to hang out with the guys and say you belong to a gym.

My computer is making verrrrwrrrclickpopknockknockbzzzzzzrrrrrrry strange noises these days.  My hard drive crapped out on me a couple months ago and I was told it was probably only a matter of time before the rest followed.  The church told me to get a new hard drive and we'd look into getting a new comp in January, since we had another staff member coming and would have to order one anyway. 

My needs are Internet, word processing, powerpoint(or something like it), and movie making.  I'm getting more and more into media stuff these days.  I'm really thinking towards Apple since I hear they are great at that stuff, but I know nothing about them past that.  I'm worried that if someone sends me a Word document that I won't be able to read it, that kind of stuff.  I had that issue before when I just had a basic version of Windows on this computer, I hated it.  Then the guy who fixed my my comp installed the Business Edition so I've got Word and Excel and a host of other goodies.  Will my scanner, digicam, and external hard drive work with an Apple?  I hope some of you guys know because, like I said, I know pretty much nothing about them.

Our Movie Gallery here stinks, and it's the only place to rent from.  Well so long suckers, today I just joined Netflix!  For just $10 a month, the price of a couple rentals from MG, I'll be watching around 8 movies a month.  We did the 1 movie at a time, unlimited rentals per month.  There is a distribution center in Panama City so we've got friends who get a movie for the weekend, send it off on Monday, the next one shows up Wednesday, send that off Thursday, and the next one gets to them by the weekend.  No late fees, don't have to go to the store and spend forever trying to decide what to get, I'm done.  Just loaded my first 15 selections, should have one tomorrow.  And first on the list?  The first season of 24!

That's what it feels like anyway, like I'm in a whole new Jeep.  Little things can make a world of difference.  Yesterday I made a few changes. 

My muffler was rusted and raspy so I cut it off.  I did this to my F-150 after it got mangled up and it sounded great around town but the drone drove you insane on the highway.  I did this to my Jetta because it was rusting off and it didn't really make much difference.  Well on the Jeep it sounds sweet!  Really not much louder than with a muffler at all, I was very surprised, it's just much deeper.  Even at highway speeds it's not loud.  I still plan to have my exhaust done, but for now I like this much better than the hissing sound it was making.

My driver's seat was pretty worn so I swapped it with the passenger seat and what an amazing difference that made.  It feels like a brand new seat and will take a little getting used to, but I love it.  It sits an inch or 2 higher too so I feel taller.

Also yesterday I fixed my speedometer that stopped working just after I got it.  It's quite nice to know for sure how fast I'm going, turns out I was guessing very accurately.  Good thing, but it's not hard to guess that you're ok when you drive as slow as me.

And really, what's not to love?

A student comes to my office Thursday with a huge smile on his face, this usually means they want something.  He tells me he was out riding around, passed a yard sale, and that there was an old riding lawn mower for sale.  Kid was waaaay excited about it.  I asked what in the world he thought we'd do with a lawn mower and he said, "I dunno, make cool videos of us or something!"  I figured it would be at least a hundred bucks and I also knew he wouldn't leave me alone till I went with him to check it out, so off we went.  We pulled up and there it was...$50!  Ok, I'm slightly interested now but as soon as I pulled the hood open I knew it was ours, for under the hood laid an 18 HP 2 cylinder Briggs and Stratton!  Oh yeah, that's a huge engine for a mower, and it ran and was in good shape too.  I figured that if the mower never amounted to much we could at least pull the engine and put it on a go-cart.  I had one as a kid with a 12 horse and the thing would scream! 

We currently have about 8 investors in this project so it'll be pretty cheap, but I fully expect that several kids will pony up their lunch money to get in on the action.  It's a pretty sweet looking machine, old and square.  The current plans are to give her a full tune up, nice paint job complete with flames, and figure out how to make this sucker fast.  As is it's painfully slow, but I know it's all in that mower transmission.  I'm going to check around online and find out what can be done about that, I know there has to be some options.  Don't have any pics right now but I'll get them up soon.

I was out in the front yard with JonMichael yesterday when I hear all this racket. Turning my attention to the skies I see two massive groups of crows swirling around. It was windy, the air must have been swirling, and all these crows were caught up in it. There were not 1 but 2 huge groups like this that passed overhead. I was able to see it thru the trees but couldn't get any pics of it, but about 2 minutes later, Group 1 group caught up with Group 2! It was crazy, somewhere around 200 crows swirling around. Like straight from a "C" rated horrer flick.

I've had a bunch of spare car parts for my old Jetta laying around that I've been meaning to get rid of.  The guy who sold me the car had boxes of spare stuff that he gave me along with the car.  So I'm finally getting around to selling it online in a couple different VW forums.  It's working out pretty well, should pull in a couple hundred.  So let's do the math - I bought the car for $400, put $500 in it, sold it for $1200, which netted me $300.  Not a bad little profit on the thing.  The man who bought it from me lives here in town, we're good friends.  Funny thing, I still love the way that boxy little car looks, or rather could look.  The money from these spare parts will recover my headliner and probably go towards neoprene seat covers.  I've got a ton of extra Atari gear laying around so I'll probably put it on ebay to go towards the seat covers as well, with any extra being saved towards my new exhaust.

I just spent the past half hour putting an overhead projector back together.  Why?  Interesting story.  The video projector we had was old and it died in the spring.  We didn't have anyone who was leading worship at the time so I didn't bother shelling out the money for a new one.  Then someone comes along this fall and does an amazing job at it, so I just pulled out an old overhead projector that was laying around.  Still didn't want to spend the money, wanted to wait till I knew it was going to be a regular need.  Well then 2 weeks ago that old overhead died.  A kid goes and finds a spare bulb, replaces it, flips the switch, nothing.  So this kid produces a screwdriver and proceeds to tear the machine apart screw by screw.  He declares it to be officially broken beyond repair, cause if he can't fix it then it can't be fixed.  "The motor's dead, the wires are fried, the panel is melted.  It's no hope, I can't do anything with this machine." 

It's been sitting for a week now but I just remembered that we'd need the thing tonight.  I went to inspect the machine, plugged it in and flipped the switch, nothing.  Since he has the thing torn apart already I checked it out, everything looked ok to me.  I pressed on the bi-metallic strip that would turn on the fan and it came on.  Turns out the replacement bulb the kid got was, in fact, burnt out. 

out with the ants, in with the deer

Just did a little yard work on my lunch break.  Killed some ant mounds, spread fertilizer and rye grass seed.  It wasn't expensive, my yard isn't huge, so I decided I wanted a green yard this winter.  Can't wait for the deer to start showing up, yee haw.