Re-cap of the weekend

Friday, March 28:

Work today seemed to drag on for a while, but then after lunch time seemed to pass fairly quickly. I ran home on my lunch break and grabbed a quick bit before packing as fast as I could for my journey back to Knoxville for the weekend. When I left work I went home for about an hour before hitting the road. I decided that there was no need to rush since the first activity I needed to be anywhere at a specific time was not until 11:00pm. I arrived in Knoxville around 8:30pm and dropped off my luggage at my parents' house before making my traditional Friday night visit to Movies 4 Sales to watch movies, kill time, and ultimately hang out with Hickey. When I got there I also met the newest employee Lori. We all three spent a bit of time talking about relationships and their deterioration process. I also was quite surprised to see that Lori actually did work while being paid to be at the store. This is a rare quality in the majority of Movies 4 Sale employees, so I'm sure Hickey was thrilled that they were scheduled together so he didn't have to do everything himself. We closed up the store around 10:55pm and then headed to our Friday night chill spot: Applebee's. While there we all pretty much had the usual and Megan our server was in a bad mood. There were some "fashionably dressed" college girls sitting at the bar attempting to flirt with her boyfriend, the bartender. We joked with her and attempted to raise her spirits. We're not actually sure if we accomplished that or not. She was smiling, but we think it was to mask her anger. After we helped them close down (basically by sitting and laughing with the employees till 1am) Hickey drove me back to my car and I made my way to Le Chateau de Taylor to retire for the evening.

Saturday, March 29:
I woke up still feeling a little tired from my Applebee's trip the night before, but I'm willing to sacrifice some sleep in order to have some fun. I ate breakfast with mom and dad and then headed off for my day's activities. While I was getting allergy shots, the shot nurse said something that struck me as odd but ultimately true. We were conversing about the weather and I remarked that I wished it was perfect weather as it had been a few days earlier. She replied that she wished it could be perfect weather every day. Then she followed with a comment that made me stop and think, pondering its deeper meaning. She said, "but if we always got what we wanted [the weather] then life would be pretty boring." This stuck with me as highly illogical but completely true. If we went through our lives always happy and completely satisfied, life wouldn't be interesting. It would seem at that point that being happy would no longer be a good thing because we would all be the same and life would never change. After the epiphany-like phrase uttered by the shot nurse I drove out to Victor Ashe Park to meet Jubin for some frisbee golf on the wet and muddy course. We both played much better than the time before and I almost sank a shot from over 100 feet from the basket! I left there and ran to The School Box location near West Town Mall to drop off some items for them to display and to do some quick work for Sue, our sales rep. It was nice to see all of my friends again and everyone seems to be doing quite well. While there I purchased 2 tickets for a Dave Matthews Band concert at the Lakewood Amphitheater in July! I haven't seen Dave Matthews Band since I was a senior in high school, but it was still the best concert I have ever been to so I wasn't against paying a much higher price than I usually would to go to a concert. I grabbed some lunch and took it to Hickey at Movies 4 Sale where I hung out watching part of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy until I returned home to relax for a while. I watched V for Vendetta and took a nap during parts of the movie no doubt as my body was trying to comprehend its own stupidity for not getting enough sleep the night before. I woke up when dad came home and then shortly after Hickey picked me up. We drove around for a bit not able to make a decision on what to do with the evening. We decided (with help from Amy) to grab a bite to eat and then go for some ice cream. We stopped and ate at Long John Silver's on Clinton Highway. I wasn't all that hungry as I had sneaked a piece of pizza from dad before I left. So I did the healthy thing and ate light (if you can call eating 11 hush puppies light!) I took a classic picture to capture my choice and as evidence that I really did eat there (I'm not really fond of this particular fast food chain). Afterwards we met Amy, Jon, Charlie, and Stephanie at Baskin Robbins to eat some more health food. While we were there enjoying our frozen treats we observed some peculiar behavior. We were sitting there minding our own business when we saw a person wearing a large cup box as body cover and a smaller box box with holes cut in it for sight purposes walking in the door. They walked through one door and then continued straight through, leaving by the door on the opposite side of the ice cream shop. I managed to snag a great picture of this occurrence, signifying my most memorable experience while eating ice cream. Hickey and I drove around after that contemplating the meaning of life in general and found ourselves at the Walkers where we hung out with Kiera, Kandi, and Ryan for the remainder of the evening. It was lots of fun as we all told various stories of things in our past and watched the kid do what she does best: entertain. We left there around 1:00am and then Hickey dropped me off at my parents' house.

Sunday, March 30:

I woke up very slowly, again not getting much sleep to start the day. I worked in "the booth" during first service and then ventured out to Walker's for some bible trivia Sunday School. I think that our class would make a good trivia team as we answered 91 questions in the hour we spent focusing on the cards. In retrospect, we would certainly be dubbed the most creative team due to Bill's expected (but somehow unexpected) answers or theories on why those answers were correct. (Insert here - his theory of John the Baptist being an attempted murderer by drowning Jesus, thereby causing Jesus to go straight to the desert to get as far away from water as possible...wow is all I can say). I met my parents, Amy, Jon, and G-mom and Papa for lunch at the Olive Garden. It was delicious as expected. I then went home for a bit before meeting Hickey and Chan at McKay's where we swapped passengers and Hickey left with me. We swung by his house to measure the bike so we could include the frame size on ebay to hopefully help it sell better. We then went to CBCB to film Ben Bolt in his classical guitar concert. It was a good show overall, but some of the abnormally long tuning breaks became annoying as they were simply a waste of film and time. He is truly a gifted musician and I am glad he had the opportunity to share his passion with our church. After the concert, Hickey and I grabbed a quick bite from Taco Bell and ate while watching a couple of episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? I hit the road later than planned and arrived safely but tired in Kennesaw aound 12:40am. I decided to omit unpacking and fell into bed and quickly slipped into a coma hoping it would last long enough to prepare me for the upcoming week.

Meditation of the day(s): Ecclesiastes 9:11 "The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the shouts of a ruler of fools."