Zach Dotsey

Harvey was barking pretty steadily at 4:15 this morning, so I went downstairs to check on him and discovered that he had pooped and peed in his crate. It wasn’t like the last time though, when Amanda and I got home and could smell it throughout the house and it was all over the crate. Harvey had somehow managed to bunch it up into the sheet in the crate and push it into a corner, keeping it all off of himself.

I let him out then hosed down the sheets in the shower and put them in the washer then did the same with the corner of the crate. I dried that off and checked Harvey for wetness and stink, neither of which I found, then put a towel in the crate and Harvey behind it. He barked a couple times but settled down pretty quickly.

Today was a pretty busy one for me as we were trying to finish a site with today as the deadline. I spent most of the day making tweaks to the site, mostly graphical, layout and CSS. I was using our new SiteBuilder, which is a great tool but took me a little getting used to. Tim Henrich, our operations manager (title changed from production manager) was super helpful today. Not that he’s not usually, but he was especially so today. Thanks Tim!  Anyway, the site is, for all intents and purposes, done, but there are still a couple things that they want done before going live.
After work I headed to Veteran’s Park, which is way on down Carolina Beach Road. In fact, the only time I’ve been down that far before have been the times I was going to Carolina Beach itself, and we don’t go to Carolina Beach very often. I was going to Veteran’s Park to meet Amanda, as well as Lorin Van Zandt. Port City Community Church was hosting its annual Trunk or Treat, which is where people park their cars and decorate their trunks with a certain theme then kids come around trick or treating. I tell ya, with all that candy, so many people giving out so much of it and all of them so close together, when we have kids I’m sure they’ll love it.

The most popular costumes seemed to be Spider-Man, Batman and Superman, about in that order. The car next to us was actually Superman-themed. The couple had just moved here a few weeks ago and the husband just really had a thing for Superman. He was dressed as Superman, one of their dogs was dressed as Krypto (Superdog, if you will), then they had a big green thing thrown over their SUV which was supposed to be Krypton, but then the most impressive thing was that they had this big structure in the shape of a skyscraper that was the Daily Planet. Kids had to walk through it to get their candy on the other side. Very creative.

For our part, we had a beach theme. Amanda threw a sheet with a cloud pattern up in the open trunk and hung some paper lanterns across the top. Then we put some palms and such in and around it, along with an umbrella, beach chairs, a beach towel and a straw mat. The three of us plus Bruce and Harvey were all wearing leis. For less than $20 and very little planning, it actually looked pretty nice. Of course the big attraction at our trunk was the dogs. Bruce and Harvey did really good, although at points they both seemed a little stressed (there were a LOT of kids) and they both got to take a rest in the car. Bruce growled a couple times when some kids got too near his face, but they both behaved like gentlemen.

We ran out of candy. The rule was that you were supposed to bring an initial bag of candy then people would come around to keep you supplied. I was hoping to have a little left over- at least some Smarties or a snack sized bag of Skittles, but nope, nada. I did sneak in a flavored Tootsie Roll, and I tossed one of those small bags of Skittles outside of the cooler (in keeping with the theme, we had our candy in a cooler and a small sand pail), but towards the end some kid saw it and took it.

Amanda and I were both pooped when we got home.  We started watching Pushing Daisies but I was falling asleep about twenty minutes in.  Absolutely no disrespect to the show, of course.  I was just tired.  The work week has been pretty busy, particularly today, and I was awake for about half an hour cleaning up dog mess during the 4:00 hour.  So I was ready to sleep.  Thing is, after we did our nightly devotional, I got a second wind, so here I sit, writing about my day and watching the live Halloween edition of Ghost Hunters.  It’s a six hour episode and they’ve had a few weird things happen already, although I haven’t paid it too much mind; they’ll have a highlight show at some point in the near future.

Zach Dotsey
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I had a pretty busy day today, but it felt good.  I had a meeting with one long-time client who needed to be shown how to operate a few things on their site.  They seem to go through managers once a year or two, but they’re always nice people.  I had a good time meeting with and talking to the one today.  I got an orange cream soda out of the deal.

After that I went to Atlanta Bread to get some work done and wait on the arrival of another client.  She hosts her site with us, but it was being built by another designer who never quite fully finished it, so we talked about giving it a redesign.  it went well.  On top of that, another client whom I’m been working on for a few weeks now told us they were going to go with us.  We’re just waiting on the deposit at this point.

I was also working on getting another site that we’ve been working on for most of the month ready.  I got the rudimentary stuff done and have a number of things to brush up tomorrow for it.

I got on the elliptical this morning.  I didn’t finish work until after 6:00 so I didn’t go to the gym.  Amanda did pick up some workout pants for me from Target on her way home though.  She’s been good about doing her workout videos.  Maybe I’ll get a workout ball and do some with her sometime.

We watched a bit of TV.  Beauty and the Geek was just a recap show, which sucks.  It’s been nice that the DVR hasn’t been backed up a whole lot lately.  I think that the only thing on it right now besides tonight’s episode of Boston Legal is an episode of Saturday Night Live from over a year ago, possibly two years ago.  It’s got a great Christmas beginning that we like to look at every now and then.

I just realized that I’m a little hungry.  I’ve had a bagel, a danish and a turkey and cheese wrap today.  Oh, and an Edy’s fruit popsicle (they’re so good!) and a bit of apple sauce.

I played a little Halo 3 tonight with a few guys.  Michael was watching the Lakers play and Chris was playing Guitar Hero III.  I need to get that before long.  Other than that I’ve been half-watching Blood Diamond while typing this.

I’ve been considering buying some tapes of Duke basketball games.  Full seasons-like.  I found a guy who will sell DVDs of games and has a pretty extensive library; I just need to figure out how far back I’d like to go.  I was thinking maybe 1985, although he has some dating back to 1979.

Zach Dotsey
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Not a whole lot to write about today. Work wasn’t nearly as busy as it was on Friday, which was a nice thing. After work I was going to work out, but since it was cold I decided I needed some workout pants. So I went to several different places in search of workout pants, but everything I found was either too small, too expensive or spandex tights. I ended up just going on home, but at least Amanda did some TV workout things.

I talked to Erin for a bit tonight.  Andra too.  She bought a Nissan Pathfinder.  They must be doing pretty well to be able to get a new SUV while expecting a second child.  Andra has told me that Josh’s new job is going well.

We watched a bit of TV, Amanda went to bed and now I’m playing Halo 3 with Michael, his roommate Matt and a guy from ECU.

Zach Dotsey
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I forgot to mention that I had to throw away my carved pumpkin yesterday. I guess a combination of the heat from earlier in the week and the rain and dampness later in the week caused it to grow all the mold that was covering it by Friday morning. Yesterday it was partly caved in on itself, so I took a shovel and tossed it into the dumpster. It sucks, because it was a really cool Jack O’ Lantern and it was only lit the night we finished carving them. And I didn’t even get a picture.

Amanda’s is a little moldy, but not nearly as bad off as mine was. She kept hers towards the back of the porch by the door, whereas I had to show off and put mine right on the stoop. Not like anybody could have even seen it yet.
We went to church first thing today. Afterwards we were talking to Kyle and Lorin Van Zandt and decided to do the Trunk or Treat thing with the church on Wednesday. We’re not against Halloween by any means, but Wednesday is small group night and they thought it would be fun. Actually it was Amanda and Lorin who really got into the idea. We’re going to do a luau theme using our Jetta, which has a pretty spacious trunk.

We went by Sam’s Club and picked up a few things after we ate at BoJangle’s. They lady who gave us our food at BoJangle’s seemed angry. I asked her for some cream and sugar was for Amanda’s coffee and she said it was back behind the station where we were getting our napkins. I thought she meant it was on the other side of it, which is where Amanda was standing, but it was actually a little further back. It was an honest misunderstanding on my part, but she sounded like I was pissing her off by asking. Amanda said she’d been rude with the guy in front of us too. That being said, the guy who took our order was really nice.

We went for a walk on the beach with Bruce and Harvey. It was chilly today, and I think it’s the first time since the summer that we wore long pants and long sleeves. We had a really good time there. The water had come up high sometime in the past few days and left a mush of foamy salty sand near a tidal pool. Bruce, who will eschew walking through the grass in our front yard in favor of the sidewalk, decided to plow through this substance. It was like it he was walking through snow, the way he sank into it and plowed through it. He had so much mud stuck to him when he came through, but he was so happy! He was challenging Harvey and jumping at him and running around. It was adorable, although it did lead to Amanda giving him a bath when we got back to the house.

Hannah pulled up to the Frazelle house as we were leaving, but we didn’t see any of the rest of them before we left.

We met up with Adam and Renee at the airport for the 2007 Cape Fear Fair.  Since we do their website and I do a number of updates for the every year, I got free tickets.  We all looked through the agricultural displays, checked out some animals and such then went on in to the fair proper.  The four of us rode the Ferris wheel.  Adam had told Renee earlier that she was supposed to kiss him at the top and I happened to tell Amanda the same while we were there.  To the chagrin of the ladies, we went around three times.

While we were waiting in line for that I mention Andra’s pregnancy to Adam.  He hadn’t been told yet so he called her to ask her about it.  I guess he’d just slipped through the crack, or she didn’t have his newer number.

It was a bit chilly today.  I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt I got yesterday at Old Navy and was pretty comfortable, but Renee wished she’s brought a jacket.  Amanda had brought a jacket and was still chilly.

After the Ferris wheel we split a funnel cake.  Well, Adam, Renee and I did.  Amanda didn’t want any.  It was good.  We then walked around and rode a few more rides.  Adam, Renee and I rode one of those platforms of a bunch of seats that spins in a circle, keeping the platform flat the whole time.  That was fun.  Then I went on several other rides, most of which spun me around and sent me upside down.  Renee rode with me on one that was a track on a wheel where the car just goes back and forth.  Other than that I was on my own as everyone else felt sick just looking at some of the rides.

Amanda was getting a headache, so, since I’d ridden all the good rides, we took off while Adam was hunting a game to play to win a prize for Renee.  Amanda and I stopped by Subway to pick up some dinner.  I almost always get a meatball sub, and have ever since high school except for a period of time when I would get a chicken breast sub with marinara, which is something that apparently rubbed off on Adam, but I have since stopped getting.  In high school and a little after, the guy at the Subway I went to recognized me and I don’t think he charged extra for getting such a sandwich.  Anyway, today I got a cold cut combo with a little lettuce and ranch.  It was yummy and, ranch aside, I believe healthier than the meatball sub.  So maybe I’ll start getting that more now.

By the time we got home I was feeling a little queasy.  I think it was because I went on so many rides in such a short span of time, whereas at amusement parks and such you have long lines so you have time to recover from one to the other.  Anyway, we ate and cleared off the DVR.  Michael stopped by to pick up his key, having come back a day earlier than he was planning to.

I lost my fantasy football game to my other brother-in-law, Josh Sawyer, by about twenty, thanks mainly to the Patriots’ defense.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda and I went to bed around 10:00 last night. At midnight Harvey was barking, so to make sure he wasn’t about to mess in his crate I went downstairs to let him out. He disappeared around the corner of the house for a minute but I never saw him actually pee or anything, so I decided to lie down on the couch while I gave him some time outside. I eventually let him in with the intent to let him out again, but I was tired and I fell asleep while keeping an eye on him to make sure he wouldn’t pee inside. I was on the long couch with Bruce curled up between my feet under a blanket while Harvey was on the love seat. Around 6:30 Harvey climbed onto the couch next to me and rolled around a bit until he was comfortable, which ended up with his forelegs around my neck so it looked like he was hugging me.

I got up after a bit and fed the animals and went back upstairs. Amanda and I snuggled with Bruce for a bit while Harvey was in his crate. We got up after a bit and left to get breakfast at Atlanta Bread. While there we came up with a list of people to buy Christmas presents for and tried to think of what to get them. Then we looked at a couple places for things to get a few people on our list and actually ended up getting things for everyone but Andra, Jackson and Amanda’s grandparents. All that and it came in pretty far under our expected budget, which was awesome. So yeah, we’re about done Christmas shopping already which means we’ll have more money come Christmastime.

I talked to my dad while we were out. He told me that Pap was back in the hospital. He’s been back and forth between the nursing home and the hospital a bit I think. Currently it’s some sort of infection in his ear that nobody can seem to figure out. I told my dad that every time I got a call from him a part of me was afraid that he was calling with some bad news. He intimated to me that he felt the same way whenever he gets a call from Aunt Terry (who, along with her husband Gypsy, is living with my grandparents right now). Then we talked a little about basketball.

I also talked to Aunt Robbie a little bit this morning and Andra a little later on. She put Jackson on the phone and he just talked and talked before abruptly telling me goodbye. As he was doing that I asked if he wanted to talk to Amanda, whom he’s still calling Mana (as opposed to his early version: Meena) so he talked to her for a minute too. I should say he talked at us, and we weren’t totally sure what he was saying the whole time, but I really liked listening to him.

We went home for a bit after that. We’d been thinking about going to see Across the Universe, a musical using all Beatles songs about some people in the 60s and 70s. We thought it was something Anna and Barry would be interested in seeing, but Barry wasn’t so we went to see it ourselves. (It was dreary and drizzly outside still today, so Amanda didn’t mind foregoing a beach trip for a matinée.) Hours later, I’m still not sure what I thought about it. Stylistic musicals are hard to really peg down, but I will say it was fun trying to pick up on all the different Beatles references throughout the movie. I mean, the obvious thing is that just about all the characters in the movie, major and minor, are named for people in Beatles songs. There are lots of other things, like the rooftop performance broken up by the police, the character Max holding a hammer and earlier being told he looked like he could have killed someone with a hammer (Maxwell’s Silver Hammer) and lots of other things.

We picked up some Smithfields BBQ for dinner then stopped by Michael’s apartment to feed Mooo!. Michael had gone back to Richlands for the rest of the weekend and his roommate wasn’t going to be around. After we got home we caught up on some more TV. While we were doing that I kept checking up on the Duke Blue-White scrimmage, which signifies the beginning of the season to me. It wasn’t on TV so the only way I could keep up with it was by checking the message board. From what I read the incoming freshmen, Taylor King, Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler all contributed mightily. It sounds like Greg Paulus, whom I’ve always been behind even during his low points last year, may be challenged for the starting point guard position. As good as his shooting is though, maybe he can slide over to the two guard. The only thing is that Paulus, I think, is a proven floor general.

Speaking of sports-related things on the internet, I shuffled my fantasy football team, the Frenzied Fornicators, around a bit. My only kicker, Matt Stover, has a bye this week, and I was short a wide receiver due to byes and injuries, so I dropped a few guys and picked up a few more. I’ve been thinking about trying to trade for a better quarterback since McNabb has, with one exception, done a pretty mediocre job thus far.

Zach Dotsey
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Holy crap was work busy today, and right from the get-go at that.  After a bit I decided I had so much to do that if I answered all the phone calls I’d just get pulled in more directions and things would take even longer to go through, so I let people leave voice messages until I caught up on everything else.  I ended up with literally twenty voicemails.  I got through them pretty quickly though, as a number of them were issues that had already been taken care of.

In that time I did take a few minutes to finish up my e-mail conversation with Kristen, which I think we both agree was a good conversation.

Amanda wasn’t very hungry when she got home, but as I hadn’t eaten anything at all during the day I was.  She brought home a couple of muffins that her boss had brought to work this morning that nobody else wanted to take home, so I ate one of those.  It was a cranberry one.  Amanda saw that one had been eaten and thought it was a blueberry, but she was mistaken in that neither one was.  She ate the other one, which was a cranberry-orange muffin.

I talked to my dad today, and he’s trying to organize Christmas plans for our side of the family on Jackson’s birthday, the 23rd, which is a Sunday.  It should work out fine for us, but it’s a bit though for Andra because she’s got Josh’s dad’s family on Friday, she’s working on Saturday, then Jackson’s third birthday is Sunday, she works again on Monday and then she’s going to Josh’s mom’s on Tuesday, Christmas Day.  For us, we go to Amanda’s grandparents’ on Christmas Eve then usually stay at her parents’ that night, do presents the next morning then head to Rougemont, where my parents live.

Andra and I had talked about trying to do Christmas during the week in the days after Christmas Day, but the problem is that Erin, my other sister, who currently resides in Portland, Oregon, is coming to town from the fifteenth I think and leaving on Christmas Eve.  Erin, I love you, but this is the second year that I really wish you had checked schedules with the rest of us.

Last year we’d gotten my family to agree to come down to Wilmington to celebrate Christmas, which we wanted to do since it was our first year in our new house.  Mom and Dad were going to be in Charlotte for Jackson’s birthday then they were all going to drive here.  To accomplish this, we needed Erin to fly in to Charlotte while they were all there or to fly into Wilmington afterwards.  Instead, she flew into RDU the middle of Christmas Day, meaning that someone had to pick her up two and a half hours away from my house.

Anyway.

I was still hungry so I decided to have one of the plethora of steaks in the freezer.  I cooked it a little too fast until Amanda came to the rescue, but it ended up really good.  She was afraid that I’d ruined the pan, but I cleaned it out nicely.

We thought about going out or having some people over tonight, but it was dreary and rainy outside and so we didn’t feel too active.  We caught up on some TV, as usual, although I started dozing off pretty early.

Zach Dotsey

At about 5:00 this morning, Josh Gitlin upgraded our server.  There wasn’t much of an issue for the most part, but some issues did trickle in here and there throughout the day.  Enough to keep me pretty occupied anyway.

I had an e-mail conversation with Kristen today in which we discussed some of our views about the small group.  It was a very open conversation and it expressed some frustrations and concerns Amanda and I have had for a while.  I’ve been a little anxious about how it will be received.  I didn’t mean anything negative in it, but there were some things that have wanted to be said for some time now.

Amanda stopped by Target on the way home from work and picked up a workout video and an exercise ball then used them when she got home.  Sadly, I did nothing.  I intend to at least start getting back on the elliptical in the mornings, if not start going to the gym then.

We watched the usual Thursday night NBC lineup, although The Office has switched back to half an hour and the final season of Scrubs has now premiered.  I hope they don’t end up putting JD and Elliot together.  They’ve just been together and apart too much and I think are better off as friends.  Last season ended up with the almost kissing, but they didn’t kiss in this one.  Elliot broke up with her fiancee, Keith, and JD admitted to himself that he was only with his girlfriend, Kim, because he’d knocked her up.  All this drama and yet it was still a good, funny episode.  I’m going to miss Scrubs.

Amanda went to bed after that so, as usual, I played some Halo 3.  I was actually about to quit because nobody I really knew was on, but then I got an invite from a guy me and Michael and Chris Flowers had played with a few weeks ago.  He and I did some Team Slayer and got to talking with another guy so he stayed teamed up with us.  Then Chris Flowers got on, followed pretty soon by Michael.  Then the first guy (ML Advisor is his screen name) invited his brother and a couple other guys and before we knew it we had ten people in our party.  We had some really evenly-matched teams and everybody was pretty talkative, so we had a good time playing with them.

For the heck of it, I looked up the price of season tickets for Duke basketball.  They range from somewhere around $5000 and $6300.  I also went out looking for information about getting some DVDs of past seasons.  I was referred to one site, but it didn’t have any pricing or anything so I sent an e-mail request for information.  I think I’d like to start around 1985 and go from there.  That would give me plenty enough basketball to watch in the off season.

Zach Dotsey