This weekend, one of the most exciting things that happened was the Saturday morning Mousecapades. Amy and I were watching a movie at her house when I saw a very smallish rodent scurry behind the entertainment center. We planned to trap him behind there, then catch him in a cup so we could take him outside, but the little brown mouse (now named Sam Rascal) decided to come at me with a fury like none has ever seen in a mouse, so I was forced to react like any barefoot person facing a mouse: jump up and down and make high pitched noises. Yes, I failed to keep him cornered behind the entertainment center, and this led to a wild mouse chase all around the den which persisted until our speedy little friend Sam disappeared completely. I had no idea a mouse could run so fast.

Other than the mouse chasing, I watched Intolerable Cruelty and Planes, Trains & Automobiles this weekend. Intolerable Cruelty is a Coen brothers film and lives up to the quality of their other work in humor, character development, and cinematography. I highly recommend it.

The lack of access to a computer at my job (at the elementary school) is really wearing on me. Don't they know I have important online things to do like make blog entries, check my email, read Slate, and play Bookworm? I finally just decided to sneak into the workroom and use the computer there, but I couldn't get to yahoo mail because they have it blocked. blogger.com is also blocked. Thus we see the oppression inherent in the system. The Man tries to take away your freedom, take away your very civil liberty of free speech. But, my friends, one day The Man will fall, and oh yes, I, along with my other brothers and sisters of the Movement, will be standing over The Man, laughing.

So I'm making this post from job #2 (at the university) where they encourage one's freedom of expression and intellectual growth. I think blogging probably falls under the former rather than the latter.

What do you mean by saying that eating an entire box of Velveeta Shells and Cheese by myself isn't a healthy alternative to preparing a real dinner?

So I'm back from skiing. We got back Sunday night but this is the first time I've had even five minutes to sit down and make a blog entry. Wolf Creek was very nice, but partly because of my adventursome spirit and partly because of my inability to read signs, I ended up on a double black slope. Yeah...that's as hard as they get. So, like any real adrenaline junkie...I went down half of the slope on my butt, then carefully maneuvered the rest with my skiis on. But there was a plus to it all - I found a really nice digital camera buried in the snow (while I was sliding down the mountain), and it still works.

And back to why I'm so busy now: During the day, I tutor classes of 3rd graders at Casey Elementary, I'm teaching two night classes at the university, and I'm playing in the praise band at First Century. But I'm finding that busy is good, and I really love my 3rd graders. There is a girl named Maci who is super cute and hasn't learned to say her r's right yet, so she says stuff like, "sit wight hewe," and there is a boy named Corbin who is the smallest kid in his class, so he hangs out with the smallest girl in the class. Even though I still say that getting up before the sun is up is overrated, it's worth it.

Well, I'm off to Colorado for several days. Mountains, skiing, hot springs...ahh yeah.

My favorite words of wisdom from Bush's appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" :

"So, we need a good intelligence system. We need really good intelligence."

"There is a lot of investigations going on about the intelligence service, particularly in the Congress, and that's good as well."

"I think, the people to understand where I'm coming from to know that this is a dangerous world. I wish it wasn't."

**(This one is the most disturbing.) "I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind. Again, I wish it wasn't true, but it is true. And the American people need to know they got a president who sees the world the way it is."

Russert: The night you took the country to war, March 17th, you said this: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

President Bush: Right.

Russert: That apparently is not the case.

President Bush: Correct.

"Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them [WMD] as we entered into Iraq." -- "henchmen"? Sounds like something Adam West's Batman would say.

"In my judgment, when the United States says there will be serious consequences, and if there isn't serious consequences, it creates adverse consequences."


Ok...there are too many amusing (and disturbing) things that Bush says in this interview to fit into a blog entry, so just go here and read the transcript.

I went and recorded guitar tracks at Studio Mecedora today for Plan for Landing's upcoming release. It's going to have seven songs, three of which will have drums and bass (hopefully). I also got hired for a real job today. Casey Elementary hired me to tutor 3rd graders for the TAKS test. I only work Mon.-Thurs. from 8:30-2:30, and they are gonna pay me verrry well. Thanks sooo sooo much to Sonia for hooking me up with this gig.

Next week proves to be busy: start my new job, start playing guitar again at First Century, leave for Colorado on Thursday, ski, ski ski.

While sitting at Daybreak Coffee grading papers, I realized that I want a minivan.

I think caffeine does strange things to me.

I just completed the final touches on a short story that I began writing a year ago. I will warn you that I am by no means a fiction writer, and this is my first attempt at anything along the lines of storytelling via prose. Most of what the story is about seems almost silly to me now, since I've overcome a lot of insecurities I had then and since I've finally found the one girl for me. But hopefully you will find some sort of amusment in it. If you want to read it, click here. If you don't want to read it, click here.

Goodnight.

I had a nice trip to dallas to buy a new guitar amp and to see As I Lay Dying. The new (replacement) guitar players weren't near as cool as evan


and chris (infamous for the "crusher"),


but they sounded good none-the-less. Nicky went with me to the show, and we got an awesome meter parking space right across the street from the venue, so that saved us $7 for parking. After the show it's the after party, and after the party it's the hotel lobby, and round 4 about you gotta clear the lobby, take it to your room and...wait, no, that's an R. Kelly song. After the show a lot of us went to Cafe Brazil, and I got some wicked good coffee and some cinnamon toast. It was nice chatting with brandon, clint, jamie, and carrie.