Honestly, I've been meaning to do this for a while. I know both of you have been looking for an update on my life but I've let you down. Sure, sure, I could call you directly but that would require less time than typing it all out plus there's that whole personal communication thing. The Internet provides emotional distance with the appearance of intimacy. Much more comfortable, wouldn't you agree?


Before I go on, here's a picture of Melanie, Mike and I with Philadelphia's second favourite son, Denison Witmer. The first favourite is so obviously Rocky Balboa. He kicked ass back in the middle of June when he played in Toronto. I don't think I posted about that before. Todd and I got a single copy of his new record, 'Are You A Dreamer?' My answer is, 'Yes, Denison, I am a dreamer. Your wonderful new record is the soundtrack of my dreams. Those dreams also include your cute, little butt.' You need this record more than you need that next breath of air. Trust me, you'll love it.

Lotsa stuff going on with me, much of which has been good. Let's see, it's been over a month since I posted anything. I had two job interviews, one for a school board social worker and one for a supervisor in my current place of employment. I don't want the first one (it's only for 6-8 months) but don't think I did that well on the interview so they probably wouldn't want me anyhow. Though getting and declining a job offer sure would be good for the self-esteem! I do, however, want the supervisor job. Bad. Really bad. I think I did quite well during the verbal interview but not-so-hot with the written part. I was told I would hear about the outcome by the end of this week. Well, that has now been shifted to the beginning of AUGUST! Crud... Not much I can do but pretend like I don't care about the delay.

I was on vacation last week, which provided a lot of time for fun activities. The first weekend was busy with get-togethers. I think we had two, one Friday and one Saturday. Don't recall the second one but the Friday had us at the lovely home of Mark & Lisa Wolfe to surprise Mike Slack & Andria Harvey and congratulate them on their recent engagement. It was a lot of fun to hang out with the Stagecoach crew. Melanie and I have been so lucky to get to know many of the people at our homechurch.
On Sunday, Mike and I went to see 'Batman Begins'. It was a great movie. Very well-done, exciting and entertaining. The only criticism I have is that the action/fight sequences were done so close-up that I couldn't see what was happening - it was just a blur of movement. Later in the week, I watched 'The Fellowship Of The Ring' in the 'Lord Of The Rings' trilogy. Hot damn, that series rules!!! I borrowed Mike Slack's collection of all three movies a long time ago but never watched them until last week (sorry, Mike). On Monday and Tuesday of this week, Melanie worked nights so I watched 'The Two Towers' and loved it even more. Can't wait to see the last part soon.

What else did I do? Spent Wednesday trying to get a repairman to fix our fridge, which had been on the fritz for a week or two. Bill (I suspect that is not his actual Vietnamese name) came over and found the problem (the thermostat and timer broke so the heating elements were completely encased in ice), fixing it for $200 after tax! Much better than the original suggestion from another repairman, who said it 'sounded like' we should replace the fridge based on my admitted inept descriptions. Thank goodness Bill came over and saved us a ton of coin.
Tuesday, Melanie and I went to Port Dover, which was a lot of fun. We sat on the beach, swam in Lake Erie, checked out some local shops and ate. Melanie had a foot-long hot dog while I ate some delicious perch. While I love foot-long hot dogs, it seems blasphemous to be on Lake Erie and NOT eat perch. Mmmm, perch. Played baseball that night too (Summer won the game for us with an amazing hit over the outfielders' heads). Thursday had Melanie, Mike, Whitney (yahoo, she's home!) and I at Wild Waterworks at Confederation Park. We had a blast going down the slides repeatedly. It was hilarious. I would go back for sure and recommend you check it out. One of the slides is completely dark, which is freaky but awesome. Mike and I kept closing our eyes on the other slide (which you could see) and it was even more fun because the twists and turns had us almost flipping over every time.

On Canada Day, we had a shin dig at Melanie's parents' house, who loaned us their pool and BBQ. Tonnes of good people showed up for a swim and charbroiled animals on the grill. It got really cool in the evening, which was weird. We really enjoyed ourselves and hope you did too, if you were privileged enough to join us.

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I wrote the above stuff at work on Wednesday morning. Or was it Tuesday? Yep, it was Tuesday. It's now Thursday night and I'm going to sleep. Some more developments with the supervisor job (I strongly doubt I have a chance in heaven for it), Sandi is down from Winnipeg, talked to Bill today, edited a short story for Blonsi, looking forward to the weekend... I shall make efforts to write more this weekend. Of course, for me, efforts mean little. I'm am the prince of procrastination (Blondel is the king).