First of all, I have to say: Happy Birthday to my nephew Daniel! Yay!
Well, I’ve finished calculating my taxes. If I get any snow days after Christmas break, I try to do taxes then. It’s sort of a tradition. Yesterday wasn’t really a snow day – it was more like a “nothing” day, but I decided to do my taxes anyway.
This is maybe the fifth year I’ve used TurboTax. Beth convinced me to use it. It’s amazing. It even knows how to do the “self-employed, minister of religion” stuff. But I always make a mistake. And I always call Beth. And she always tells me the same thing. It’s on the screen where I’m supposed to enter my housing allowance. I’m not just supposed to enter the declared amount, I’m supposed to enter the actual amount as well.
Here’s something for the memory archive: Fill in BOTH boxes, Brad.
(Insert Libertarian rant about taxes here.)
Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day and all that.
I spent a great deal of time last night painting posters. I made twenty-one posterboards that had phrases on them for use in chapel today. The phrases had to be on posters because I’m using a cool idea someone else came up with: a series of phrases sounds discouraging when you read them forward, but encouraging when you read them in reverse order. It’s fun because the first time through I get to say stuff to the kids like “All you are capable of is failure.” It’s fun to mess with their heads.
I looked for a GIANT magic marker when I went to get my posterboards, but I didn’t see anything even remotely the size I wanted. I ended up getting tempera paint. It was a huge pain to paint the words instead of writing them. I think it increased my production time ten-fold. Is there such a thing as giant markers? Where does one find them? Alternately, was there some way I could have “written” with paint instead of painting with it?
Maybe it’s better if I don’t know there was a simple solution. I spent almost three hours on this stinkin’ project, and now I’m not even sure we’ll have chapel today. School is two hours late because of ice. 
Ron Paul called me yesterday! He left a message to thank me for my support and to remind me that today is the day for me to vote. He’s such a nice guy. I was a little embarrassed at the call, because my phone was on “ring” instead of “vibrate”. But fortunately, Ron called right in between classes, so the ring didn’t disrupt anything. How thoughtful.
I didn’t pick up because I didn’t recognize the number. It was 853-958-9558. Since it went to voicemail, I can listen to his message to me anytime I want. (for the next 20 days before AT&T automatically erases it. What’s up with that? Why can’t I keep a voicemail message as long as I want to?)
Anyway, the 853 area code is Macau, China. What is Ron calling from China for?
I’ll add this treasured Ron Paul memory to the memory of him sending me birthday wishes. He used a funny card, too! How he got some kid at my school to deliver this to me during class, I’ll never know…
Since I played around on Saturday and didn’t get anything done, yesterday was more of a work day. After going to church twice (once with my handbell group, and once at my own church), I had a quick nap. Being twice as holy is tiring!
Next I went to my pastor’s house to pick up some photography equipment because he was donating it to school. He followed me to school to help me unload it. Then I stayed to work some. Grades are due tomorrow morning. That means I’m staying late tonight. But it won’t be as late as it might have been because I got a lot of stuff organized yesterday.
By the time I was leaving for home, it was dark. I was hungry, but not feeling any less lazy about food than I usually do. In the contest between lazy and hungry, lazy always wins. It’s a good diet plan. I simply don’t keep any junk food in my house, and I’m always too lazy to go get some.
But since I was in the car anyway 
, I stopped for some carry-out on my way home. I went to Godfrey’s. It’s one of my regular places. I usually get the barbeque pulled pork, but I was in the mood for something different last night, so I got a cheeseburger.
If it weren’t for my carry-out restaurants, I’d never eat meat at all.
I wanted to go out to eat over the weekend to celebrate my birthday with my co-workers. Looking for a celebration kind of restaurant, we settled on a hibachi grill restaurant. You know, the kind of place where they cook the food at your table because it’s a giant grill? It was really fun. A lot of people couldn’t come because I had given them really short notice and they were busy, but our entire English Department was there, as well as half of the Math Department. We took a group picture, but Peggy blocked her face with her napkin. She was embarrassed that she was looking so “smiley face” yesterday.
I told my mom that I was going to a restaurant like this and she made me promise I would get some sake. I did, Mom. Here’s my proof:
So why is this post in the “Investigations” category? I was at the end of the table which put me to the side of the chef. I had an excellent view of the sigil he wore on his belt: The Standing Lion. I only know of one group that uses The Standing Lion in Japan. This symbol marked our chef as a member of the Japanese Illuminati. But why was the Illuminati monitoring our lunch? I will wait and see if they show themselves again…
