cerebral discharge

We are on the way to Arizona!

We were hoping to leave Warsaw by 2pm on Tuesday and get to St. Louis by Tuesday night. 2pm quickly turned into 7:30pm but we finally got out of there in time to make to…Indianapolis. Yeah we only got 2 hours the first night, but 2 hours is better than none, I guess.

Wednesday we woke up after a very nice stay at the La Quinta Inn (Best value for a decent hotel room I’ve EVER seen.) We were hoping to make it to Tulsa on Wednesday night, but after we were sidelined by a flat-tire on the jeep’s trailer, we only made it to Springfield, Missouri.

Missouri, by the way, turned out to be a pretty cool state. Lots of character, lots of hills, and several really cool towns. We stopped in one town called Eureka that had the biggest high school I’ve ever seen. I was sure it was a university, but it ended up just being a massively cool high school.

Thursday morning, we left Springfield and headed towards Oklahoma. Oklahoma was not nearly as cool as Missouri. It was kind of run-down, industrial, and dirty. Oklahoma City, however, had the ritziest neighborhood I have ever seen, with dozens of mansions (more like castles) with small yards were all in the same place. They were clearly 5 million a piece or more.

I’ll take two.

We stopped in Amarillo Texas on thursday night. The cliche that the sky is bigger in Texas is TRUE. You can see forever in every direction. The sunset takes forever, and is stunning!

Today we set off for Flagstaff. We’ll spend the night there, only 2 hours from Phoenix, and we’ll drive down from there on Saturday morning to start moving into our new place.

The dogs have done incredibly well thus far. They mostly lay down and sleep, but every once in a while, Sam decides to stand up and watch out the windows while we drive. A few times, he’s tried to lay down half on my lap and half on the steering wheel. In those cases, I have to grab him by the scruff of his neck and throw him to the other side of the vehicle so that I can keep my 4 ton truck from going into a ditch, or off a bridge.

We’re heading out now. I’ll try to update again in a day or two.

I leave for Phoenix tomorrow!

The last two weeks has been a flurry of house remodeling, packing, and saying goodbye to some of the best people I’ve ever known. It’s been pretty intense, pretty stressful, and pretty sad.

How did I spend my last night? (after all the work, of course) Playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl, drinking my last two beers, and watching a documentary called “The Half-Ton Man.”

I’ve had so many good memories in Warsaw, Indiana. I met my wife here. I was married here. I bought my first home here. I have been a member of the healthiest (and least stable) church I’ve ever known. I’ve worked here. I’ve shopped here. I’ve suffered here.

Tomorrow, I’ll pass the keys of my house off to someone else, climb into a 24 foot truck, and start a 30 hour + drive across the entire country.

I’m not sure exactly how to process this whole thing. Oh well. I guess I won’t try right now.

C-Span kicks ass.

I said ass, knowing full well that my grandmother reads my blog. Sorry grandma! Young people use curse words. Actually, young people don’t think of “ass” as a swear word, anymore. I was just thinking yesterday for absolutely no reason about what words would be swear words when I have grandkids. I just hope they don’t use the F-word as often as I say “ass.”

Back to the topic: C-Span kicks ass. They upload all the speeches, debates, and conventions to their youtube channel. I got to go back and watch the VP debate again. It was enjoyable and informative.

Here’s the video:

She needs more time.

She’ll do OK…later. I am afraid of what would happen if something happened to McCain and she became our president. I like Sarah Palin a lot, but I just don’t think she’s ready to take on what she’s facing. It may be that being a VP could be that incubator that she needs to get acclimated with the world. But that seems like a pretty high seat to sit in to get yourself used to the world.

I’d vote for her for Senate for sure, but for the Vice Presidency of the United States, I’m just not sure.

Biden impressed me. I like the guy.

I actually like the VP candidates (as people) a lot better than I like the presidential candidates. I kind of wish that it was Biden vs McCain, with Obama and Palin as VPs. Biden has a lot more experience than Obama does in leadership.

All in all, the VP debate was good exposure for both candidates. They both did way better than I expected them to do. Palin presented herself as very likable, and much more knowledgable than she seemed in her Couric interview.

I’ve had this car for 6 years now, and I am finally letting it go. Some girl just got her learner’s permit, and her dad brought her by to check out my Neon. They took it for a test drive, and I waited just inside the door, thinking they would be back in 5-10 minutes. 90 minutes later, they came pulling up! I couldn’t believe they were gone that long.

I ended up selling it for $700, which is 100 bucks less than I wanted, but 100 bucks more than the previous offer. I’m happy to finally have it sold. All the major pieces that needed to fall into place to make this move successful are done. We have renters for our house, my car is sold, we got the U-Haul reserved, we have a place in Phoenix to stay, and the house is almost done being worked on.

I had planned all this time for something retarded to happen to ruin our plans. I just assumed that things wouldn’t work out. I’m so used to being disappointed in life, I didn’t expect all of the big stuff to work out fine, but they did.

Maybe I’ll learn to trust God a little more.

Maybe.

I made a post immediately following Sarah Palin’s speech at the RNC giving my support to the possible next vice-president.

It turns out that the person I really was excited about was her speechmaker.

As soon as I heard her talk without having someone write her speech for her, I realized that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She has said some ridiculous stuff in interviews since that speech. And it’s kinda scary how little she knows about the world.

Like, seriously, I think I could probably do a better job then she could.

Seriously.

I hesitated to admit to myself that this was true, as I had just posted a blog entry spouting my support for Mrs. Palin. But I am officially withdrawing my support and sticking my foot in my mouth.

It does not taste good, but it is the appropriate thing to do, I think.

I’m back to voting for Bob Barr, which I think we’ll be better anyways.