Fantastic Weekend
And Clemson’s win was just a starting point! Saturday involved cleaning out the garage, mowing the lawn for the final fall trim, window shopping the future mega TV and many other activities. Our garage is now VERY clean and well organized, now all I have to work on is my tool peg board and hanging the assorted tools. The lawn was pretty easy, the only tough part was bagging the clippings so they didn’t clog the yard after I thatched it previously. The window shopping was great fun of course. To line it up, we previously ordered a nice console table to go downstairs…the downstairs that can not fit a conventional TV in the furniture configuration that we have now. So my answer, and any sport fiend techy answer, get a nice big screen DLP or LCD (Plasmas have shortened life spans and can’t be replaced while LCD and DLP have bulbs that can be changed). I’ve done alot of research on the topic and, along with the dimensions of the console table, have narrowed it down to a 50 inch TV made by Samsung, Sony or Panasonic. In my great weekend, I spent most of Saturday in the tech stores looking at TV’s as they played some great college football games. I think we have some decent models lined up for possibilities and now I have come to find out that I may have a connection into the Best Buy discount through a friend (Now that Andy II is no longer employed there!!). After walking around the mall and smelling all the autumn smells, I made the decision to bake some apple pies. We got what ingredients we needed and headed home where I baked two pies. Hopefully this week I will get around to the pumpkin pecan bread I planned as well. We ended Saturday by eating out at Chili’s and renting “A lot like love” with Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peete. It was a decent movie, good humor and fun story line. Overall, Saturday was a blast with the wife.
We began Sunday in attempts to rejuvinate our search for a church to start going to.  If you know our history we are both pretty passionate about our faith and have found the middle road to be Episcopal, a supposed halfway between Presbyterian and Catholic. The church we went to was very nice, for those of you from back home it reminded me of Princeton Pres. It was a nice blend of the free flowing service of a Presbyterian church and the traditions of the catholic church. And the main factor in my church choosing, the sermon was satisfying, could be related to life and had some humor to it. They even had the childrens choir sing two hymns, which Lauren thought was adorable. I believe that we will be trying that church out again as soon as we have a free weekend in town again. After church we decided to continue our home improvement weekend and head to Lowes and Home Depot. We noticed that our front light was burned out and we wanted to buy a new porch light. The current porch light was a recessed light that really did no justice to the entry way and I wanted a hanging light to bring some eye candy into the entry way (or something like that). After pruchasing a nice hanging lantern and lights we returned home to where I installed everything in about under an hour. I am becoming quite the electrician with all the light fixtures and fans that I have been working with, in fact our neighbor asked if I could help out in the near future. Anyway, while I was hanging the lantern our neighbors came over and started chatting it up and let us know about the neighborhood pumpkin carving contest. We have been waiting for this as it is a tradition in the neighborhood and a great chance to meet more neighbors. The contest was great fun with the adults drinking seasonal beers and carving pumpkins while the kids ran around. In the end there were 34 pumpkins on display, the sky was a fantastic blend of oranges and reds and the wife and I had heard about bringing our own kids next year about 50 times. All in good fun though! The pumkpin that won the adult category was amazing, the lady carved a pumpkin to look like a forest and carved another to be of some people with picks and shovels over a grave. She then put the grave pumpkin INSIDE the forest pumpkin and it looked like a 3D scene. The other pumpkins ranged from free hand cutting to stenciled, which are pretty amazing if you have the patience. Afterwards we headed to our neighbors house to drink some more beer and hang out a bit before the Sunday night TV line up came along. We gave the neighbors one of the previously mentioned pies as well as she had previously given us a great pasta dish with shrimp in marinara and had invited us to the pumpkin carving contest.
Overall I had a blast this weekend hanging out with my wife and our neighbors. The perfect fall weather, the time outside, the accomplishment of more wiring and home improvement along with the fall baking was awesome! Oh and the Tigers blew out Temple in a display of offensive prowess.
October 25th, 2005 at 10:44 pm
*Tweet*
Personal foul on the blogger. Mention of Amanda Peete without accompanying picture. 15 yard penalty. Repeat post.
Double check the manufacturers behind the TVs you’re looking at. A lot of them are made by the same Chinese companies.
October 26th, 2005 at 9:02 am
You’re going to have kids soon. I can feel it. I give you guys 6 months.
October 26th, 2005 at 9:13 am
DON’T SOLICIT BEST BUY. HAVE MY DIRE EXPERIENCES TAUGHT YOU NOTHING, GRASSHOPPER? THEY WILL STEAL YOUR SOUL AND EAT YOUR BRAAAAANE!
Sorry to shout.
Cool in re: the church, though. I’ve found it interesting that couples tend to find a median between their denominations. Presby. + Catholic = Episcopal in most cases that I’ve seen, whereas, in my case, Presby. + Non-denominational/evangelical = Southern Baptist. I’ve seen Baptists and Catholics settle on Presbyterian. It seems there’s a definite pattern to finding the median church.
October 26th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
I certainly wouldn’t say that non-denominational and Presby. = Southern Baptist. Maybe Baptist, but not your fire and brimstone Southern Baptist.
October 26th, 2005 at 6:13 pm
Here’s a question, though: what happens to those couples that are right next to each other on the denominational scale? For instance, high church Episcopals and Catholics? What about Baptists and Southern Baptists?
And what about those wacky Lutherans, huh?
October 26th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
A) They find a comfortable church which satisfies each of their spiritual needs.
B) They become Jewish
C) They succumb to the Hollywood Religious Influence and become Scientologists or study Kabbalah.
October 26th, 2005 at 9:43 pm
From what I have seen in the hellworld known as chain electronic stores, I have liked the picture and realtive price tags on the Samsung. Check for LG, they seem to make everything else. Sony seems expensive (but how can 4 bazillion people be so wrong) and RCA and some of the others seemed grainy. Have you checked out any place that is more high end specialty. I would say Tweeter but they are loosing that rep. We have a new to us chain HHGregg here and they are getting them in G’ville and possibly Cola too. At least they are possibilities. Also, believe it or not, Sears has most of the typical brands. Don’t count on expertise but may save a buck or two. Congrats on being 35 by the way.
October 26th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
And apparently people like me just don’t get married.
October 27th, 2005 at 9:23 am
Check out some higher end places, possibly Tweeter (though they don’t carry the swagger like they used to in my book). There is also a place around here called Zobo. If nothing else Ithink they can tlak more intelligently than the part timers at the Big Boxes. I personally like the picture and the price tag on the Samsungs I have seen. Don’t rule out Sears either just as a price checking option. Everyone has a Sony something though. Surely 4 bazillion people can’t be wrong on that selection.
Also, congratulations on turning 35 this past weekend.
October 27th, 2005 at 9:46 am
firstly, a large middle finger to Wha for the 35 suburbanite comment. Sit and spin buddy. Secondly, we went to BB, CC and the store with a stuttering problem: HH GreGG, or as I like to call it, huh huh gray guh guh. I am not impresssed with HHGG, seems like a poor competition for CC and BB with similar merchandise. We will probably get to the specialty stores like Tweeter when we close in on the deal. Right now I am talking to people at work who own different models, brands, and technology to help out. So far everything that we have chosen seems to be the best selection from word of mouth.
October 27th, 2005 at 11:08 am
I thought the “turning 35″ comment was quite funny.
October 27th, 2005 at 11:22 am
I’ll have to disagree with Wha. Sure, everyone has something Sony, and those same everyone’s have something from Sony that they would gladly smash with an ax if they hadn’t paid so much to begin with.
Sony TVs might not be bad, but in my book Sony is always a 50/50 proposition.
October 28th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
Yes, the Sony comment was a joke. a touch of sarcasm if you will. I much prefer other brands simply becuase I receive the same product and capability for less money (except on an open box VCR one time). Regardless of the spining on finger, the 35 comment was one of my better lines in a while. I just apologize for sending it twice as the first time was hung up in administrator land.
October 28th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
Hey, whatever TV you get, make sure it is 1080p. Not an upscale-conversion to 1080p from 1080i, NATIVE 1080p. They are real, and they are spectacular.
Now then, it seams that I am in a perfect pale to comment on the church stuff. I was raised “middle” Episcopal - my local church wasn’t all that local (half hour), and was tiny by comparison to most. My grandparents are “high” Episcopalians, and in fact my grandfather is a deacon in the church. All of this AgentOrange was well aware of, after all of his comments of going to church with my family and excersizing for an hour…
I happened to fall in love with and marry a fairly devout Catholic. There really aren’t very many differences at all. But the few that are there are pretty big, and hard to overcome. She refers to me and my church as buffet catholics - we take to stuff that we agree with and just don’t touch the broccolli. We have agreed that she will never call herself Episcopalian, even should we decide to commit to a congregation, and likewise I will never call myself Catholic. Our Children will be raised as hybrids, and we will commit to a single church at some point down the road when it becomes necessary for all the right reasons. Kid#1 was baptized Catholic. Kid#2 will more then likely be baptized Episcopalian…
We try to attend both churches, but it’s hard around here because here in the south, even the Catholic churches are a little bit country. We went to a service where the homily (aka sermon in non-catholic tongue) was entirely centered on the notion that we, as members of the church, did not need to think about the bible or it’s teachings - all of that had been done for us. There were no questions, no grey areas. She didn’t take very kindly to that, partly because it has been one of my complaints about catholicism all along, and here was a priest confirming my statements (though not my assertion that it was a problem). We’ve seen similar variances in the Episcopal churches in the area too, so I have a feeling it is more regional and not a congregational thing…