Busy

Work is super-busy. I'm not getting to bed at a reasonable hour, and even when I do sleep it's not very relaxing. Fitting in the studying and having fun is tough. It reminds me of my busy days in college. The overtime pay is nice though.

I saw two concerts recently - The Ditty Bops and Nickelcreek, which was fantastic, again. And tonight I saw the 5 Browns. They are five siblings who play five pianos simultaneously. They were good - a pleasant way to spend an evening, but nowhere near the Bops or NC.

This weekend I went with a group of friends up to Cedarburg to take a winery tour. It wasn't much different from a brewery tour except that brewery tours never explain to you the proper way of ordering a beer. After the brewery we shopped around Cedarburg. I made the group of people stop at the Rock Shop. Then we went to Don's Resale and Antique Store. It's in the basement of the Seed 'n' Feed. It is amazing how much junk fits in that basement - I mean, store. Parts of cars, broken umbrellas, fixed-up lawn-mowers, chairs, tools, lamps. If you can't find it at Don's, then you don't need it. We bought a broken lamp. We're going to rewire it. It's our project for next week. And I'm excited about it.

jazz

Mick and I found a great jazz bar tonight. I think it may become a regular hangout for us on Thursdays.

8 drinks

I was just going to post about how good I was this weekend and how I hardly had anything to drink. But then I really thought about it and realized that I had 8 drinks over the weekend. Somehow, that was a light weekend.

Friday night, Christie, Justin, and I did non-Irish things. We went for dinner at P. F. Chang's. Then we went bowling. Ok, then we went to a bar, but it was already the 18th by then. Saturday was uneventful. A little studying. A little swimming. Lunch with the intense intern. Garrison Keillor. Dinner with coworkers for a 30th birthday party. Then we went out to play pool and darts. The girls had the pool table first. They played for 75 minutes. They played one game. On average, each ball took 5 minutes to sink. Of course, if you also count their scratches they averaged one ball every 3 minutes. My highlight of the night was when I pulled my dart team back in the game with 4 bull's eyes on 3 darts. It felt great.

This morning I taught the Sunday School class for Senior High. I am extremely motivated to mobilize the youth in our church. I want my church to succeed. And I think a good place to start is with the kids. There were 6 in class today. I'm going to try to organize some events to do with them. And I'm definitely planning some lessons for the Sunday School.

Mick and Christie came over for dinner tonight. I talked a good deal about church. I think I have Mick on board for whipping our church into shape. And perhaps we can convince Christie to join us too. To join the good fight.

Dance like a Peanut

Last Friday, a bunch of us went dancing at Retro Night. Most of the music comes from the 80s for Retro Night and this week I actually recognized most of the songs. We decided that we would go dancing over the weekend after Jake, Katie, and I spent Wednesday night listening to Michael Jackson songs and dancing like our favorite Peanuts characters.

My favorite is the one that bops his head from from shoulder to shoulder while lifting his arms to one side. Katie's really good at walking in place with her arms straight in front of her. Jake told us how his favorite character is "Penpal."

Ok, I just looked for my favorite dancer and it seems that I made him up. He wasn't on the show. I suppose I imagined him. Maybe the imaginary dancer's name is "Penpal."

Busy

I'm taking full advantage of my company's overtime policy these days. I'm going in a little early and staying late. I have plenty of work that I don't even think I'll be able to finish by the deadlines, but noone will be able to say that it was for a lack of trying. Of course, some things are losing my attention because of this extra time at the office like blogging and sleeping.

However, I have been able to start up some new activities. Tyrone and I are meeting at the library on a regular basis. He needs to start focusing on his studies or he's going to go nowhere fast. And I need to prepare for my May exam too.

The weather was nice enough this weekend that Jake and I went to the tennis court twice. He played in high school, so he was able to give me some pointers - especially because it's been a year since I last touched my racquet.

I'm getting a little bit more involved at church. I went on a weekend retreat two weeks ago and got to know some of the other congregants. They also got to know me and I think have more respect for me now. This past Sunday I stayed for a meeting after church to discuss the Youth programs for the church. I got a fed up with some of the discussion and I think I may have shown some of my anger. Of course, this only led to me signing up for things that I may not be ready for. But I can't really see myself doing worse than the current situation.

Jake is out of town for the next two weeks. Maybe this'll give me some time to focus on getting things in order. Actually it's more likely to cause me to get anxious and I'll get less done at home. It seems that when he's gone, I'm less likely to be at home. It's not that we spend so much time together. It's just lonely to spend all day at work and then the evenings in the apartment. I'd rather head off to the library or a coffeeshop or the gym.

Laundry

I can't believe how much lint my clothing creates in the dryer. I bet after 4 loads I have enough to make another shirt. Which leads me to wonder why I don't lose a shirt after every 4 loads.

I realized that some of my new undershirts have holes in them. Extra holes besides the neck and arm holes. But then I thought to myself, "Summer's coming. And I'll appreciate the extra ventilation.

Should I wash my clothes before throwing them out? And I mean really throwing them out, not just giving them to Goodwill. It just feels weird either way - to take off the clothes and put them straight into the garbage can or to wash them and dump them in the laundry room. In the former case, I think to myself that I had just worn them, they were perfectly good clothes five minutes ago, and now suddenly they're trash. In the latter case, I always rationalize that I just spent money and time to wash the article of clothing, now I have to wear it once more.

The moral of the story is that I don't throw out clothes. Even if they're worn thin because of the copious amounts of lint that accumulate after each washing. Even if they have holes in them. My room is going to fill up with clothes. This is another reason to lose weight. Smaller clothes will take up less room and give me more time before they fill my room.

Have you been Ditty Bopped?

I have tickets to see the Ditty Bops again. They're opening for Nickel Creek. This time I've convinced some people to go with me though. Details to follow.

Find out what it means to me

While I was in Alaska last summer, I missed our Respect at Work training. Now, eight months later, I have to spend my morning watching a video about how to interact appropriately with my coworkers. There have been quite a few comments around the office about how finally the Streak of Donny's Disrespect will finally come to an end. I think I'm going to address the training facilitator as "toots" and see what happens. She's the same one who talked to me for an hour at the holiday party and, I later found out, was too drunk to remember any of it.

Viva la Milwaukee.