Kirk's Explosive Reply

I'm listening to the Star Trek II soundtrack right now. I never laid any claims to being a person of high musical notions so save your snide remarks for someone who needs your approval. :)

Last night I was in Meijer thinking about Shaun and Amy. It occurred to me as I was hunting for the jug of milk that had the latest expiration date on it that I was more likely to accidentally run into the Kinsers in the store than to purposefully set up some sort of social interaction with them. I pondered my own pathetic ineptitude but soon lost my train of thought as I found milk that will not expire until January 22! WOW! This event came rushing back as, standing in Target this afternoon, I found the Kinsers in the diaper aisle. I shared with them the story I just relayed to you. We collectively suck.

Shaun and Amy are doing well. Seven weeks remain until there is another Kinser drawing breath. It makes me smile. Keep them in your prayers as they are preparing for the big transition. :) We decided to fix the lack of interaction by making dinner plans for this week. I'm glad. Now if I can just lay eyes on the Forgraves I'll have seen the majority of the Nazholes in my vicinity. I think...

Oh, I also saw Amanda Nagy and her new baby in the diaper aisle at Target. Apparently it is a social hotspot. This is making our increasing age all the more apparent. Alesha and I didn't get a chance to stay and chat long because we were on a fairly tight time table as my parents were watching the baby and we had a LONG list of things to do on a running clock. My apologies to all involved.

I'm not sleeping well these days. It mostly revolves around the big screen TV that we ordered. Yes, ordered not received. This, like everything else has a long-winded story because I have to share EVERYTHING rather than the PERTINENT:

I've been wanting a big screen TV for about five years. It all started when my Uncle Mark got his Toshiba 57" and I was amazed at movies on it. With a $4k price tag it was so far beyond my reach that I did no more than dream of owning one. Roughly two years ago the dreaming began to take on a slightly more solid shape as I started shopping for them. The prices on the ones that I wanted still stood in the $4k range which meant that the reality of HD was not any closer to coming into my home than ever before but I was actively looking. Alesha and I discussed it at length and decided that we would purchase one in celebration upon selling our house. As you all know, the house just sold but I had decided against getting the TV until we move. Then...

On Thursday, Erik, Nikki, and myself headed over to Costco for lunch. They have an ultra-cheap food court AND I had a TV purchase lingering on the horizon. (Both they and Sam's Club are the best TV prices in town, by the way.) I did great deal of looking and settled on a JVC they were selling. Great price, great picture... ONE left. This applied some pressure and I went back to office and began pondering the purchase. The price seemed more and more expensive as Alesha and I began figuring in tax and such into the purchase which lead me to online shopping. Long story short: I found a bigger and better one at Tiger Direct for almost $200 less than what I would have paid in the store. This means I have to wait for it to be delivered, but I can handle it.

I can handle it the way a 7 year old handles Christmas: with very little sleep and much anticipation. Seriously, every time I try to get some sleep I start thinking about the TV and get excited again. I have full knowledge of how sad this is but I can't help it. I'm thrilled!!!!!

Today we snagged up a TV stand and an upconverting DVD player. Whether they are worth the price is a subject of much debate around the internet but most come to the same conclusion: they make your DVDs look better but they still aren't HD. That's fine with me. I've got over 200 movies on DVD and I'm not rebuying them in hi-def so they might as well look as good as I can make them. I've snagged up a few other items in preparation for the coming of the TV: component cables for the Wii, an HDMI cable for the DVD player, and valium to help me sleep. :) Oh, and let's not forget the "media stands" that will sit next to the thing. It's going to be five feet wide. FIVE FEET WIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Good bye world! I will no longer be contributing to society!!!!! (My contributions are currently under debate anyway...)

I'm sure there are other things going on in our life (looking for a new house, for example) but I'm not heading into those right now. It's time for me to finish preparing for my small group tomorrow and go to bed.

The talk of the Gathering seems to be legit. Check the board. Sounds like Kinser's on Feb. 3. Sound off!

O.