It was a pretty long day. I went in this morning to help out with the news. We couldn’t fix the sound on the new intro I made, but it might work by tomorrow. They showed the video Ms. Lyons got me to make about the publications and a lot of people seemed to like it, not necessarily because of what it was, but mainly the fact that it ate up another ten minutes of class time. Works for me.

Tonight was amazing. I always look forward to Young Life, but tonight was the best night this school year so far probably. I picked up Winston and Sarah, who both went for the first time, and we grabbed some drinks at Starbucks and then went on. Griff was Ferg again and they did the dating game. Alison spoke tonight and it was really great. Nice addition to the regular “raytune” haha. Psh ok no more bad jokes. You kinda had to be there to get it anyway.

Rachel, Jeffrey, Winston, Sarah, and Katie all ended up in my car (it was a tight fit with four in the back!) and I dropped Sarah off at home and we went to Chick-Fil-A to meet up with everyone again. We sang Club songs in the car the whole way there… really loud and obnoxiously of course! It’s more fun that way though! Found out they don’t have 75 cent desserts anymore on Wednesdays. That was a little depressing. So we decided we couldn’t afford (or were to cheap to pay for) $2.50 desserts and passed around Jeffrey’s cookies and cream milkshake. What a an amazingly intelligent idea with that stomach flu thing that’s going around school! But me and Winston eventually got our own ice cream after we had our share of germs. Ben, Rachel, Jeffrey, Katie, and Winston all piled in the car again and we stopped for gas because after all the driving around I was basically trailing home on fumes in the gas tank. We sang all the way home again, too, and by 10:30 I had taken everyone home. Fun night.

I know it’s a paradox, but my weekend was really full, but also pretty stress-free and relaxing at the same time. Here’s how it went down.

On Saturday morning, I headed up to Charlottesville with the family. We hung out at the house and I fell asleep on the couch, which is saying something, because I never, ever, ever fall asleep during the day unless I have the flu or something pretty bad. But no, I wasn’t sick, just really, really tired. Woke up an hour later and never felt better, though. Anyway, for dinner we went to this really cool little seafood place. Had to wait forever to get in, but it was worth it. I got some kind of tortellini with scallops in it. It was amazing. Sunday morning brought more great food. Had the best pancakes ever in this little place in Orange on the way home.

Enough with the food, though. When I got home, Jenn came over and I attempted to fix her computer. When I couldn’t, we took it to Best Buy. Then we went to California Tortilla. It’s a little expensive, but great food. You could equate it to a really nice Salsarita’s. We went home after that and Alex came over almost as soon as I got back.

Alex and I hung around my house for a bit and played ping pong and air hockey, then I called Jenn to see if she wanted to go see Breach with us. I picked her up and we went to the theater. It felt like about twenty five below with the wind chill. The movie was pretty good, though. A little depressing, but hey it wasn’t a chick flick for once, and considering I was with two chicks, I can’t complain at all. Afterwards, we went to Starbucks and Allie and Clem showed up. I drove Jenn home and met them back at my house. It ended up that Clem had a problem and had to be driven home… I’ll just leave it at she didn’t feel good at all. So anyway they went back to Allie’s house. I thought that was the end of a busy day, but oh no. Fifteen minutes later Alex called me and asked if she could come back over around 11:00. I thought this was somewhat odd for her, so I said sure, why not. I knew something was up. Sure enough, she broke it off with Alex. But I’m honestly proud of her for doing it. She deserves much better than how he’s treating her lately. So we talked it out and watched Family Guy and talked about the podcast we’re starting, and all was seemingly well with the world.

Monday brought a surprise trip to Patomac Mills. Translation? My mom and sister had Shopapalooza 2007. She claimed it was only a little north of King’s Dominion. Try closer to metro Washington, D.C. I was so hungry for lunch I just about started munching on my left hand. It wasn’t bad… they made quick work of the two hundred some stores up there and I bought some cheap closeout clothes. Hey, why not. After that, we headed over to Ikea. That’s the biggest, most amazing store I’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely insane. Three levels of furniture and home design stuff that goes on as far as you can see. It’s actually pretty cool. Lots of modern stuff. Maybe one day when I have my own house I’ll be able to afford some stuff there and deck my house out.

Today I finished the news intro at school and I think I finally fixed it. I finished editing the publications video, too. That’ll run tomorrow morning on the Wildcat News. Ms. Lyons even cried when she saw it. Not quite sure why, but I think she liked the fact that it showed the yearbook really finally coming together. After school, I jumped with my sister on the trampoline for a little bit, then Jen came over and we went running… eh, sorta. We always end up talking and laughing so much that neither one of us gets that much running in. But hey, at least we walk and do some kind of physical activity. She came back to my house and we whipped up some interesting tasting spaghetti. I say interesting because it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t that good either. Then we went back to her house to have some cookie cake leftover from all three of her family’s birthdays this past weekend. Makes the running/walking we did so very worthwhile… minus the worthwhile part. Anyway though, pretty good day for a Tuesday.

What a day yesterday. I’m pretty sure I completely bombed a quiz in math, but it didn’t even bother me because of the prospect of the upcoming three day weekend, and the fact that it won’t hurt my grade that much. Yearbook was fun as usual, minus the fun part. Sat around and edited senior section stuff and then wandered the halls doing not much of anything.

In Gallagher’s class I left and went downstairs to find Mr. Gross to put up more sheetrock for the green screen in the newsroom. He wasn’t in there, so I went and ate lunch with Jenn, Winston, and Lizzy. I basically had two lunch periods yesterday.

I went and hung out with Alex, Jen, and Allie in extended study in an attempt to avoid Mr. Deep Run practice at all costs. I think I’m dropping out of it. It’s getting absolutely ridiculous. I can’t get any of the dance steps and Alex made me realize that it’s not worth working really hard to embarrass yourself… I mean there are a lot easier ways to do that than being in a school production that eats up the only free time you have during the day at school for three weeks straight. I’m gonna make a final decision about it Tuesday, though.

After school, I rode home with Jen and we went by her house, then my house, then went to Panera and got soup in bread bowls. Nothing better than that on a cold winter day. Afterwards we headed to the mall to search for birthday presents for her mom and two brothers. Funny thing though, everywhere we went, Jen got a gift for herself too. Strange how that happens. Then we went and bought movie tickets and walked back in the bitter cold to Circuit City in an effort not to lose our parking spot right in front of the entrance to the theater. Parking spots are insanely hard to get a hand on up there as you probably well know.

So we headed back to the theater and saw “Music And Lyrics.” It was really, really good. I thought it was going to be an all-out chick flick, but it was so funny. Hugh Grant plays an 80’s “has been” singer from the fictional band “PoP.” Drew Barrymore plays his plant-watering girl turned lyricist. Best movie I’ve seen in a while… really entertaining. The song that plays in the beginning is supposed to resemble a song the band released in the 80’s. It’s called “Pop! Goes My Heart” and it’s really catchy. The dancing’s hilarious and the song will be stuck in your head for days. Go see this movie!

We went to Taco Bell afterwards and saw a bunch of people from school there randomly, then took the hike across the parking lot to Wal-Mart to look for more birthday presents. That place is creepy late at night.

Today I’m headed to Charlottesville again with the family to stay at Dave and Sue’s house. I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

As a side note, I’m starting my own podcast hopefully this week. It will be downloadable from the Podcast Directory in the iTunes Music Store when I get it up and running. I need a catchy name for it, somehow incorporating my name. If anyone has ideas, send them on. If I like yours, I’ll reward you somehow… maybe buy you Starbucks or something of the sort. I’ll publish a separate post about the podcast later this weekend with more details. I’m pretty excited about it!

So today was good. As the title implies, I did a whole lot, but nothing very productive, if that makes any sense at all. I basically did nothing academic whatsoever at school today, and I was spacing out all the while. It’s a good thing I wasn’t on the news this morning, because I’m kind of stone-faced on there as it is. It’s hard to look normal when you’re reading that teleprompter. Everyone tells me I read the announcements really well, but I still look kinda dead. But, they told me I’m getting better at it. Anyway I digress. Here’s how my day went.

I picked up Winston and we went to breakfast at Satterwhite’s before school. It’s out in Goochland near Bogey’s, and I hadn’t been since last year. The place has changed hands again, but the food’s just as good as ever. We both got pancakes, but I got bacon and hash browns with mine. I love breakfast, but I hate the after effects of eating big ones. I basically wanted to do nothing the rest of the morning or day at school. I wasn’t really tired, just extremely lazy. I stayed in the newsroom all of first block messing around on the computer and finishing a new intro for the morning announcements, went to the Medford basketball game in government and did no work, and, as usual, did nothing in biology fifth block. Gallagher did change our grades back from the zeros I wrote about yesterday, though, but only because he got what he wanted- four people owned up to cheating on the test.

I went to Mr. Deep Run practice, reluctantly, during extended study again. I’m really liking the whole notion of competing in this thing less and less. We have to do three dances for the opening number: “Living La Vida Loca,” “Hips Don’t Lie,” and “Senorita.” I can’t dance worth anything. Scratch that, I look like some kind of epilepsy patient when I attempt to dance. Anywho, We’re through learning the first one and starting the second. I don’t even know what I’m doing for my talent anymore, though. I thought I wanted to stand up comedy, but it’s hard to pull that off and actually make it decently funny. I’m working on throwing something like that together if I can, and I mean I can make people laugh, but most of the humorous stuff I say would offend too many people in a school setting to do on stage. It’s all up in the air as of now.

In photography at the end of the day, I did more of nothing. Talked to Sarah and Riley for a while at my table, then worked on that video some more. Then I helped Mr. Gross throw some sheet rock up on the wall in the news room so we can do green screen effects like they do on the weather, where you paint the wall green and put a computer image up behind you. After that I took Winston home and then went to take my Nana and Grandpa some Valentine’s Day stuff with my dad and sister, then went to Panera for dinner.

Tomorrow’s Friday! Should be a good weekend… it’s a three-dayer!

So I decided I’m gonna start a new blog. Fresh start. Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. I guess it went as well for me as it could for any single guy. I went kinda overboard this year buying chocolate, cards, and even balloons for friends, but hey it was fun. To be quite honest, I did all my shopping at God’s greatest gift to those who have difficulty parting with their money, Dollar Tree! That place is amazing, gotta say. Anyway, back to my day.

In Gallagher’s class, we took a test. He knows half the class cheats on every assessment he’s ever given in there that’s online, but he thought he’d try to outsmart all of us today. After we took the online test, he stood at the front of the room and informed us that he could see who was switching between two or more windows during the test and cheating because the software on the website recorded it, and that he’d be having conferences with five offending people. So he called me up to the front of the room and whispered what was really going on. He told me he had given everyone in the class a zero on the test, and he was hoping to separate the bad apples from the good. How? He figured the people who cheated wouldn’t own up to it and question why they had a zero, but those who legitimately took it would ask why they had that grade. Clever, eh? Not really. By the end of the day, through this wondrous thing called verbal communication, 95% of the class realized everyone had a zero, cheater or not, and he couldn’t really monitor who had multiple windows open. Anyway, I thought that was funny. I don’t think he even really cares all that much about cheating, he just wanted to see if he could outsmart us for once.

So tonight Younglife started back up. It was about time. I wanted to go out to eat beforehand, so I called Monica to see if she wanted to grab a quick bite. She did, and we just ended up at Starbucks since I decided to eat after Club at Chick-Fil-A. What I didn’t know was that she was supposed to go to dinner with Joe and didn’t want to, but she was out with me instead. So as soon as we get there, he calls and she has to make up a random excuse why she couldn’t hang out and convince him that she’s really at home amidst the sound of the deafening coffee grinder in the background that of course didn’t start until she answered the phone. So she pulled that one off somehow, but not for long. As soon as we pulled up to David’s house for Club, sure enough there was Joe, standing right across from where I parked waiting for her so they could walk in together. She ducked down and got in the floor in the passenger side of my car and told me to go in first so he didn’t know she was with me. I went in and left the keys with her and she hid out for a bit longer hoping he’d give up and go inside. He didn’t. She finally gave up and got out of the car, and they stood out there having some sort of argument about it. Enough drama for one night? Of course not!

The fun continued when I invited Winston and Lizzy to Club. They didn’t know where it was even though I gave them the two-step directions that were plain as day. So they started calling me once it had already started, so I couldn’t really answer my phone. Between the two of them they made 25 calls and left 7 voicemails on my phone. I opened it a couple of times and whispered that I couldn’t talk, but I don’t think they heard me. Anyway, everything got cleared up in the end after I called them back between leaving there and going to Chick-Fil-A.
It amazes me how crazy today was considering I don’t even have a girlfriend. Don’t even want to think about how much more that would have complicated things. But all in all, not a bad day.