It was a dark and stormy afternoon. I decided to pass the time by trying to get a load or two of laundry finished. I started a load of towels and let them soak for a little while. A short time after that I went to start the load. A few seconds later the plastic coupler that engages the engine to the transmission is snapped into three separate pieces. I immediately start looking to my trusty friend Google for a repair man and find a beacon of hope in someone who will answer my call at 3:45 on a Friday.
On Saturday the hero calls and tells me he will be at my house before 12:00 pm. I await his arrival. At 1:00 I call the hero of my tale and inquire to find out "Where the heck are you at"? Little did I know that to have to call the hero back and find out if he is still coming is worse forshadowing than the spooky music or the sound of the smoke monster coming toward you on LOST.
At 2:30 the hero arrives. He proceeds to take my washer apart and show me the broken coupler. He goes to his truck and returns with a replacement and proceeds to hammer it onto the transmission for my washing machine. This is not a good sign from the hero as it is merely supposed to slip onto the spindle of the transmission. The hero then slaps the thing back together and attempts to start the washer. Now however the transmission has seized and will turn. The hero confesses that he is puzzled as it was working before he hammered the part onto the washer. He then turns to me and tells me the transmission is now broken and that it will cost almost $300 to replace. I quickly realize that he is not the hero but the man in black trying to escape my island paradise with my money. He proceeds to charge me $60 for the privilege of having him break my washer and then bolts from my house as quickly as possible.
I finally get to inspect my washing machine and find that the transmission is now totally seized and that the equipment is now in significantly worse shape than before. I call the repair man confront him about the state of this "repair" and he proceeds to raise his voice and yell at me with each question about how this could have happened.
In the end I realize my hero is a bad person that has just taken me for my money and left me a $500+ bill to buy a replacement washing machine. Please learn from my folly. If you are in the Greenville Spartanburg area of South Carolina and need a repair do not look for your hero at Benson Refrigerator and Appliance Repair. The cost is simply to high. Your island is better off without the mystical touch of this bad man.
The End...
I have deliberately taken some time off from the internet in the evenings, because I wanted to accomplish some things at home and with my family. Having met most of those goals I am going to start blogging again when time permits. I hope you guys are still interested. Grace and Peace all.
Posted on 7:31 PM
In honor of our 6th anniversary, I am hijacking Tim's blog to share 6 reasons he is the best husband ever. :) Bear with me and skip this one if you don't like mushy posts.
Dear Tim,
I can't believe that it has been 6 years - time has flown! I still remember seeing you at the end of the aisle as I walked down with your grandfather holding my arm to give me away. You looked so excited to see me and I felt like a princess meeting her prince. Since that day, our love has only grown deeper and I can't imagine my life before you. I love you so much and I hope you realize that. You are my everything. Here are some reasons I adore you...
1. You are the most passionate person I know. Whether it's about Christianity, the 5 points, Florida State football, Tony Stewart, or the benefits of Mac versus Windows, you can argue politely yet firmly with anyone and help them see your point of view. You politely listen but can talk passionately about all these topics and more for hours on end. Sometimes I get aggravated (when I am not winning the argument!) but I admire your passion and knowledge.
2. You are the best listener EVER. Even though you can talk for long periods of time about anything I can think of, you also are an awesome listener. You show that you are paying attention and you remember every detail about what anyone tells you. Even if it is something you don't really care about like what the horrible student did for the umpteenth time in my classroom, you still listen and offer advice and let me know you care.
3. You surprise me when I least expect it. I LOVE Totally Random Days and I love how you make all these plans to do things that you know will make me feel so special. I love the way that you and V always wake me up on my birthday and I love seeing you guys conspire to mess with me. It is silly and sweet all at the same time!
4. You are the best daddy in the universe. I know you were nervous about whether you were ready to be a dad because you never had a "dad", but you have studied and read and thought so much about how to be a great dad. You didn't even need to do all of that, because it just comes naturally. I see you with V, in the good times and bad, and it melts my heart because I feel inferior compared to you. You have transformed this little girl who didn't know how to relate to guys into a complete and total daddy's girl.
5. You make me feel like a better wife and mother than I am. There are so many days that I feel like I get it wrong much more than I get it right, but you are always there to cheer me on and give me a reality check if I need it. You compliment me all the time and make me feel so special.
6. You can make me laugh like no one else in this world! Even when I am tired or sad or just not feeling like me, you always say something to make me laugh. There's not time to list all the funny things that you have done for me but you always make me feel better, no matter what the situation.
I love you, baby! I can't wait to spend the next 60 years of our lives together.
Posted on 10:00 PM
Just curious if anyone is actually checking in out there. If so let me know. If not okay.
I am sitting in the kitchen, helping Veronica work on her homework, doing a little bit of odds and ends for my work, and trying to catch up on the joys that are the internet. I had just started helping Veronica with some math problems and given her some time to work them out and the next thing I know she is in tears talking to me about her brother and sister that she has not seen in years and did not remember prior to one of the final parental meetings just prior to her being adopted, when her birth mother decided to pull the entire family (even grandparents) in for a final visit. The tailspin that this threw Veronica in still continues to this day and at times I believe will continue in some way for the rest of her life.
I am not upset about her feelings, her desire to talk about them, her longing to remember more, and to make sure that they are okay. In all of those things I wish I could help and do more, but I can't. God has not given me this ability, so I sit and listen and sometimes (like today) I fume at those who have hurt my daughter. The many ways they have carelessly damaged my child. The time it will take her to see these scars as the parts of life that will one day make her the incredible person she is to become (all a part of the mysterious and glorious providence of God). I am angry and I hurt for her and that makes me angry on days like today and I am totally powerless.
All I can do is sit, listen, dry her tears, and hope for the day this does not hurt her so badly. And maybe a time when I can forgive those who have done this to her and not burn with hatred toward them as badly as I do today.
Posted on 5:12 PM
Labels:
24
What is going to happen tonight? Is Jack going to be in FBI custody? Is he going to kill Jon Voight's supper evil bad guy character? Is this season starting to seem a little sluggish to any one else? Maybe it is just me or maybe it is the crazy work schedule I have had the last two weeks, but I am just thinking that 24 doing multiple plot lines in a single season is a bit to much. I am interested to know the rest of the fanboys and girls think. Please let me know.
I plan to offer a new feature to my readers. I am going to highlight the work out music I have decided to listen to that week during my workouts. I hope you enjoy it and maybe you can recommend some great tunes for me to listen to in the process.
This week I am starting with one of my favorite musicians. His name is Andy Osenga. He is an independent artist from Nashville and is a part of my all time favorite band Caedmon's Call. I picked his music because it has a great mix of tempos and the songwriting is amazing. I can also say that he is one of the nicest guys I have ever met. Please check out his site at ilikeandy.com and buy some of his stuff. You will not be disappointed.
Early in the Morning (The Morning)
New Beginnings (The Morning)
Swing Wide the Glimmering Gates (Letters to the Editor, Vol. 1)
Wanted (Letters to the Editor, Vol. 1)
Good Things Always Are (Letters to the Editor, Vol. 2) (Veronica also calls this her song, because he put a line in there about her)
Let Us Know You (Letters to the Editor, Vol. 2)
Canada (Letters to the Editor, Vol. 2)
After the Garden (The Morning)
White Dove (The Morning)
Santa Barbara (The Morning)
Expectations (Overdressed w/ Caedmon's Call)
Hold the Light (Overdressed w/ Caedmon's Call)
Kara (Photographs)
The Best I Can (Coming to Life w/ The Normals - serious back catalog here)
We Are Beggars... (Coming to Life w/ The Normals)
Give it all a listen and please comment about your favorites.
I am going to be posting my brains out this weekend because I finished my marathon email project up for the University. I have probably only slept a couple of hours per night the last two weeks, but it is done and it is ready to go for the faculty, staff, and students on Monday.
This means I get my life, my wife, and my kid back (or at least get to see them again). This week is going to be like I played a country song in reverse!
Wow, what crazy day of racing at Atlanta Motor Speedway! The racing was fast, loose and crash filled and that was the first 65 laps of 325. As my blog readers already know, I am really on here to talk about how Tony Stewart did so I will not say much about Kurt Busch's dominance, Jeff Gordon's resurgence, Brian Vickers' bad luck, or Joey Logano's relentless quest to test the build quality of every outside retaining wall at each track the series visits (one of the announcer's actually referred to brushing the wall as pulling a "full Logano" today).
I was actually afraid that today was going to be a relatively poor day for Tony as his car was a little off the pace and after 60 laps he was pretty close to falling a lap down to the leader of the race. He pitted to have his car serviced and fell two laps down in the process, after one of the strangest caution flag calls I have ever seen. A crew guy ran half way across the infield grass to retrieve a stray tire and the officials threw a caution flag that lapped all but 6 drivers 65 laps into the race. I have watched NASCAR for at least 20 yrs. and I have never seen anything like this.
For the next hundred or so laps Tony was mired in the field 2 laps down in around 30th position. Then his car came alive and he managed to get both of his laps back and start his march back toward the front of the field. It was awesome! He finished 8th for the third time this season and moved up to 6th position in the season long points standings.
All I can say is that he is doing great and it looks like Stewart Haas Racing is going to be a racing force all season long. Keep going Tony!
How do you like these hot ladies out playing in the snow?
Just make sure you stay away from the little one until she is 35 and be sure that you have her Daddy's permission first even then.
These are my snow bunnies as we are out in the snow having fun.
I can't believe it, we had 6" of snow yesterday. At the beginning of March, nothing like this really happens in South Carolina.
Erin, Veronica, and I all spent a lot of time just playing around and making a mess of ourselves in the snow today. Our English Bulldogs even got in the act for a little while.
I took a walk around the neighborhood for about an hour early in the morning just so that I would have an excuse to take some pictures and so that I could beat the rush of everyone getting out in the snow.
I took tons of pictures, and I will be posting them on the blog and mostly on my flickr link as time permits, but I just thought I would let you all know and to share a quick preview with you all.
This morning has been very interesting. It started with my sick little girl acting like a wild woman waiting for her medicine to kick in. At the same time, I was working on breakfast because I was constantly hearing "I am starving, Daddy!" I am also trying to respond to the torrent of emails and questions that come at me all the time and are a seemingly inescapable part of my job (even when I am taking time off).
A few minutes into V's breakfast, I look up to see all of her oatmeal coming back into the bowl from which it was disappearing just moments before, but this time it was seasoned with juice.
This is all happening in the instant I am fixing an email problem that has dogged me all a week long. I won't give you the details on that, but I will say it is a strange feeling being elated, relieved, concerned, and nauseated all at the same time.
Now we are watching the Spiderwick Chronicles on DVD while I continue to sort email and blog this post. I do hope I have seen the last repeat performance of a meal for the day.
For a second week in a row Tony has had a strong top 10 run. He is one of only three drivers to have top 10 finishes in the first two weeks. Not bad for a guy with a new team. I hope the season keeps going this strong all year long.
He is currently tied for third in the season long championship standing, but is still really early in the sesaon and 33 drivers are within 250 points of the lead.
If you are a Nascar fan feel free to chime in. I will try not to be mean when talking about your favorite driver.
I know I have been a bit sporadic to say the least these last few weeks, but it has been a very trying time in the Patterson household. I will give you a quick run down.
Erin and I have been as sick as dogs with a nasty bug that took about three weeks to fully kick. I am just finishing 20 days of antibiotics and there are more to come.
We thought for about a week that we were going to have another child enter our family, but God did not will for this to happen for us yet.
Veronica has been really sick the last week. Crazy high fevers, numerous doctors visits, antibiotic changes, and some general quietness that is just uncommon for our house.
Finally, work has been really challenging and disheartening at times, because I have some projects that I just couldn't get the necessary participants to get on board so we could close them out, some projects have been close to finished only to have last minute setbacks that plague the possibility of keeping established deadlines, and some things that have been working are just dying because of damage to the hardware layer. All this work has come at the detriment of my family, health, rest, and in some ways sanity. A 15 hour day has been all too common during this time.
I know the next two weeks are going to be really tough at work as we still have some major initiatives that have hard deadlines to meet, but I should be more frequent in my posting and I still have several things to catch up on.
Posted on 6:50 PM
I will be back soon, but for some reason I just cannot shake this funk. Some of it physical, some of it mental, all of it funky. I hope all of you are doing well.
I am not going to make to much of a deal out of it tonight as it was just the Bud Shootout Race, but Tony Stewart looks like he is great. He was in 16th position with two laps to go and with 1/2 a lap to go he made his way up to 3rd and was moving up but the race ended on a wreck and he didn't have any more time to move up. I am so glad to see he is looking this strong to start his new season as a owner and driver.
Just a quick note, a new John Piper book "Finally Alive" has landed at my house. It will be a few days before I can review it, but I am sure it will be awesome.
