From the Desk 7/5/2008

This morning I once again enjoyed sleeping until 10:00. I'd better be careful not to get used to this or Mondays will begin to be a bad day due to the hour at which I'll have to arise. I checked email and did a few other things online before eating some breakfast. I watched some TV, trying to motivate myself to go ahead and finish up the ceremony video. I began working on it around 12:30 and finished with the editing part at 3:45. I set it up to render and burn to DVD and let that run while I drove over to Stacy's. She was out of town, but I needed to mow before the grass reached record setting levels for height and thickness. I was happy to find that the grass had not grown as much as I had anticipated, but also glad to go ahead and cut it before it had a chance to. It only took about 20 minutes to cut the grass and empty the bag. I thought about putting together the coffee table that she bought when we went to Ikea, but I left her a note saying I'll help with that next week.

I went back to the apartment and found that the project had experienced an error and crashed. That was not unexpected as I have only had one project out of the many I've done with Avid that didn't crash at least once. I checked a few settings and then started it off burning again. While it was doing its thing, I opted to play some Guitar Hero III and finally beat the game on the easy setting. I think my skills are improving as the medium songs no longer appear impossible (but the hard setting does). I played a few more songs and then checked to see if the project was still running without errors. It was and was almost finished so I sat and watched it to make sure nothing went awry in the closing minutes of the process. It finished up and I played it to check some spots and make sure it was correct. It looked great and I began duplicating the four copies of the ceremony disc. I was able to finish making the copies before I had to jump in the shower to get ready for dinner.

I picked Christina up at the Box when she got off work at 8:15 and we left to go to dinner with Leslie and Brian. I hadn't told Christina where we were going to eat (I tried to make it a surprise) but she soon figured it out as that was the only thing out that direction. We parked and I thought I might get away with not having to have my car valet parked, but those were the only spots left so I gave my keys to the gentleman as we walked inside and he handed me my ticket in return. I've never had my car valet parked before so this was unusual for me. We ate in the upper level of the Elevation Chophouse restaurant. It overlooks the runway at McCollum Airport so as you dine you can watch planes take-off and land. It was a beautiful sunset that was ending at that time too. We ordered our meals after much contemplation with what to get. Our food arrived after a while and that is when the conversation got quiet as we were all anxious to sample our meals. I ordered the Pan Seared Scallops which were served atop this greenish mixture that looked like runny guacamole. It tasted very good though and I looked it up to see what I had eaten. It was an olive relish with a ring of tomato puree on the rim of the bowl. In the center was a rocket pecan-risotto. The scallops were perfectly cooked and were the biggest I had ever seen. Not exaggerating, they were about half the size of a canister of Play-Doh (3 inches x 3 inches!) Christina selected the Grilled Atlantic Salmon which looked delicious as well. We finished dinner and then decided to order and split the creme brule, which was recommended on every review I read of the restaurant. There was a good reason it was hyped because it was delicious! The valet brought my car up and then we parted ways with Leslie and Brian. After picking up her car from the Box we went back to may apartment to watch The Italian Job since Christina had never seen it and it was on my top 25 list of movies (which we're slowly working our way through, adding in her favorites as well). She enjoyed it and then it was time to say goodnight. I walked her to her car and then went back inside to get ready for sleep so I would be rested for church tomorrow.

Meditation for the day: Psalm 121:7 " The LORD will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life;"