From the Desk 7/28/2008

This morning I had every intention of waking up at 6:15 to get up and go run again. Apparently my body did not agree with my intentions as it allowed me to sleep past my alarm and past 7:00. I hurriedly got ready and made my way into work. As I was passing the Exxon station on the corner I noticed that the price had dropped yet again (without me purchasing any gas) and was down to $3.86 per gallon. I got settled into my desk at work and began working on the last sign I should have to make for a couple of weeks as the Back-to-School craziness has officially arrived. I did figure it was important to make this sign as it was announcing our extended hours during this time of year. I also worked on finishing a project I was helping Stacy with for the majority of the day. I tediously updated the sale prices of the items listed in our BTS Sales Flyer so they new sale prices would be reflected in customers' shopping carts on our website. The process was slow, but I began to see progress so I kept at it until lunch.

Today Vickie took Stacy, Corey, Judy, Tausha, and I out to eat for lunch. Stacy had recommended Taco Mac as a good place to go so that's where we went. I had a delicious Hickory Burger with fries. We talked about the crazy and sad things going on in the country as there were several TVs encircling our eating area and most showed breaking news that made me question the "goodness" of humanity. After lunch we returned to work and I began chipping away at the last pages of the item updates. I finished my pages around 4:00 and proudly presented them to Stacy. She, in return, gave me 3 more pages to work on which would finish this project for good. I worked on them briefly until 4:30 at which point I packed up my things and left to go mail some DVDs at the post office.

The post office I frequent usually after 4:30 only has one employee working the front counter which produces a line like a new ride at Six Flags on opening day. Today I was pleasantly surprised to find that three people were manning the counter and the line was not very long and moving rather quickly. I mailed out my packages and then headed home for the day. I arrived home and so as not to feel like I cheated the Box out of some time, I worked on finishing the item updates on my own computer. The fact that I was not sharing an Internet connection with the entire office made the work go much faster. I managed to finish 2 pages in about 35 minutes (as opposed to the normal time of 1 page per hour!). I also started copying wedding DVDs to give a copy to Brenda and Lisa this weekend at Brenda's daughter's wedding. I sent several emails in an attempt to schedule some activities while I'm in Knoxville this Saturday. Christina called me and informed me that she was done with her finals and the Summer classes were officially over! To celebrate she selected the movie "Into the Wild" to rent and she brought it over and we watched it. It is a powerful movie about the freedom of the human spirit and how sometimes our focus on possessions and society can blind us to what really living feels like. It stars Emile Hersch who does an excellent job as the main character. You can read more about this movie, which is based on a true story, here. After the movie was over I walked Christina to her car. We would both need sleep as we both had to be at work at 8:00 the following morning and I was determined to run before that. We said goodnight and I went inside to drift off to sleep.

Meditation for the day: Psalm 119:93 “I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life.”