Zach Dotsey

Amanda and I watched the first two new episodes of Scrubs tonight.  They were both good.  The second one reminded me of one from the first season in that it featured the moving death of a guest character.  That show’s really got some heart sometimes.

After that we watched the Duke Blue Devils play the Davidson Wildcats, attempting to keep their streak- most consecutive non-conference home wins- alive.  Duke got up to a 23 point lead with a run in the second half, but then they forgot how to score and play defense for about ten minutes.  Davidson got to within eight, but Duke ended up winning 79-67.  Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer both had 22 points and Davidson’s star, Stephan Curry, had 29, though he was held scoreless for the first quarter of the game.

It really wasn’t pleasant to watch the last quarter of the game, but there were some notables.  Jon Scheyer scored his 1,000th career point and the team played much better it seemed with Brian Zoubek in.

Reading articles now, after the game, everything seems to be focused on Stephan Curry.  You’d hardly think Duke won the game.

Anyway.  Aside from that the only real thing of note today is that Amanda came up with yet another name for our baby girl.  We started off with four names, narrowed it down to a tentative one on Saturday, changed it to a similar one on Sunday then then today Amanda e-mails me from work with a completely different one.  I’m not a huge fan of it though, so I don’t think we’ll go with it.

After the game Amanda watched her The Bachelor and I played a couple games of Left 4 Dead with Michael.  We both survived the end of both games and played with a couple of decent players.

Zach Dotsey

I have to start off with this:

Amanda finished her penultimate Days episode and we saw that the Carolina Tar Heels were down by six to Boston College.  Let me give you some perspective here.  All I’ve heard all season is how awesome this Tar Heel squad is and how they’ve got such a terrific shot at going undefeated for the entire season.  The Boston College Eagles were picked to finish eleventh (out of twelve) in the ACC.  Tonight was the ACC season opener for both teams.

Amanda decided that we’d jinx it if we watched it all, but I had turned off a game of Fallout 3 to come watch it, so she hurried through her show while I sat at the kitchen table and snacked on carrots and ranch dip.  After Days was over I stayed right where I was, nervously munching on baby carrots.  BC was doing well all game and Carolina just wasn’t making shots like they usually do.  The Heels got to within four towards the end, but thankfully they couldn’t pull it off, losing 85-78, much to my delight.  So now this high and mighty great Tar Heel team is tied for last in the ACC.  Oh, and it was at Chapel Hill.  Beautiful!

Next up, Duke opened up ACC play against Virginia Tech, who has played Duke really tough the past few years.  The game came on a few minutes in, since Carolina-BC ran long (in my joy I didn’t even noticed) and Duke was up 11-0.  The game normalled out a little though and the Hokies came on pretty strong to start the second half, turning an eight point deficit at the half to I think a four point one in just over two minutes.

Coach K called a time out at about 17:30 and from then on the Blue Devils tore it up.  They ended up allowing only thirteen points, 13 points! for the rest of the half.  It was Virginia Tech’s worst offensive performance in nine years.

Stanford beat Arizona, too.  I pull for Stanford because their new coach this year is Johnny Dawkins, a star at Duke and later a longtime assistant coach.  Other than Kentucky losing a tied game to Louisville on a three point shot with 2.8 seconds left on the clock, it was a wonderful day for basketball!

Amanda and I, what else, but got up and went to Port City Community Church this morning.  We ran into Kyle and Lorin Van Zandt on the way in and talked to them for a few minutes before heading in just as the service was starting.  It was lead today by Todd Fields, who is from Atlanta and wrote a lot of the songs we sing in church on a weekly basis.

The message Mike Ashcraft gave us today was one revisiting the last couple years at this time: My One Word.  It’s a twist on the old New Year’s Resolution where you just pick one single word and focus on it, instead of picking a bunch of things you want to change, failing on one then letting it all go.  It was really a very challenging sermon.

Amanda and I happened to sit next to a couple we’d met a few times at Blake and Stephanie Konny’s place before.  I hate to admit that I can’t think of their names right now, but the guy has the same birthday as me.  We talked to them for a few minutes then talked to Kristen Barriner, whom we haven’t seen in quite a while.  She and her long time boyfriend, Rob Peterson, split not too long ago and she’s working on putting things back in order.  She seemed to be doing well though.  She gave us a congratulatory card about finding out our baby is a girl.

While we were talking to her, Nick Warkentien came up and told me that things weren’t looking good for Mike Paschal’s brother, Chris, who had been in a car accident yesterday.

As we were walking out of the building we heard our names called and saw Jeaneal Guy.  We talked to her for a minute or two too then headed off to pick up some bagels at Ken’s.  We were going to pick up a dozen but Amanda wanted the cheddar, which they were out of, so we got a couple to go and ate them at home.

We didn’t do much for the day.  I caught up on some things on this website while Amanda caught up on her Days of Our Lives DVRed episodes.  We played Little Big Planet for a little bit, but Amanda wasn’t feeling it too much today so we only completed two levels.  Other than that we just sort of took it easy until the basketball games.

Amanda went to bed and I played a game of Left 4 Dead with Michael.  He died at the very end of the game.  We were playing with two guys who would just run way up ahead of us and not play as a team, which can be pretty annoying.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda and I stuck around Richlands one more day because Phil’s sister, Ona Pickens, was coming to visit with Peter, her husband, and William, her younger son.  Stanton, the older son, was going to be in Las Vegas as we’d heard earlier, but it turns out he’d been out partying the night before and had to get ready to head to Vegas.  Where’s the love, Stan?

Anyway, they got to the house for lunch.  The grown ups ate in the new sun room and us kids (thirty years old and I still think of myself as a kid?) ate in the kitchen.  After that Michael and I showed Will Left 4 Dead and he and I played it on split-screen in the living room while we hooked up with Michael, who was in the sun room, via Xbox Live.  Amanda watched and the older folks hung out outside or in the shop or someplace.

You know, after years of playing online gaming on TV screens measuring 42 inches or larger, it’s hard to adjust to split-screen.  Oh, it was all good when we were playing Goldeneye or MarioKart 64 with four people on a 19 inch TV, each person getting about a four inch square to play in, but we didn’t really know any better at the time.  Yet another way we have become spoiled by modern technology.

The Pickens crew left after a bit and I got Amanda to take up Will’s spot in Left 4 Dead, but she didn’t play for too long.  Truth be told, the computer AI was a bit better than she was, not that that’s any knock on her.  It’s not like Amanda’s had much practice at playing first person shooters.

Amanda and I decided to go after a bit, but after packing up neither one of us felt like driving.  A deal was eventually struck and we were about to take off, but then we couldn’t find the dogs.

Amanda’s grandparents had come by to return some stuff they borrowed for yesterday’s shindig, and in all the traffic inside and outside and walking around, going to the shop and such, Bruce and Harvey were let out, despite Amanda telling people not to let the dogs out, and nobody kept an eye on them.

It wouldn’t be a huge deal, but Bruce likes to run off and doesn’t always listen when you call him.  Harvey’s a lot more obedient but hasn’t been there very much and was likely to run off just checking out new smells and such.  Amanda nd I frantically looked for them, and everyone else helped too.  I heard some barking that sounded vaguely like Harvey’s across the field in front of the house so I set off that way.

Harvey, it turned out, had been shut up in the shop.  I’d called for him back there and we assume he was trying to come to the people calling him because someone eventually heard him trying to get out.  Bruce had taken off to go visit the neighbors.  So it all turned out okay, but the sun was starting to set and Amanda and I were really apprehensive about trying to find the boys in the dark.  We were, honestly, a bit upset about the whole thing.  I tihnk people know we love our dogs, but sometimes don’t realize just how much.

When we were leaving, Karen said something about how it’s even tougher once we have a kid.  Obviously we’d be more concerned about losing a child, but I think people would be mor ecognizant of letting a kid outside, plus a kid would know to answer back when you’re calling for them.

Anyhoo, all that aside we had a nice Christmastime with both of our families.  We got home (I drove) and vegged.

Zach Dotsey
.

Michael Mercer and I were up pretty late playing Left 4 Dead and Resistance 2 last night.  This morning I stayed upstairs for a while as Amanda and Karen got a few things ready to take over to Amanda’s grandparents’ house for the annual big family day after Christmas get together.  It’s thrown every year and is supposed to be hosted by a different family of the grandparents’ generation every year, though oddly this was the first year since I’ve been around that it was hosted by Peggy and Earl Lemons.  Amanda and I appreciated the fact that we didn’t have to go to Raleigh or Oxford for it this year.

I mostly stayed upstairs for the morning.  Amanda and her mom have one thing in common in that they both talk a lot and they’re both loud while doing it.

We went over to the Lemons’ house to help get things ready, although by the time we got there it was pretty much all set.  We had a nice time visiting with the extended family, but there’s not a whole lot to write about in detail.  Caileigh, if I’m spelling that right, Jon and Denise Greene’s baby (Denise had to work and couldn’t come today), has gotten much bigger since we last saw her on for Labor Day weekend.  Of course, babies grow and develop a lot at that age.  She’s walking now and starting to talk.  She’s a beautiful little girl and I had fun playing with her once she warmed up to me.  Of course, Amanda and I are going to steal baby of the family honors in a few months.

Amanda, Michael and I were leaving with Amanda’s dad, Phil, who had come over earlier than the rest of us to help with the pig cooker.  He got stuck in the damp ground, but fortunately Jon Greene had driven his truck and had a chain in it, and, as fortune would have it, was parked right in front of Phil.

Later in the evening we watched the Batman: The Dark Knight Blu Ray movie that Amanda got me for Christmas to go along with the PS3 Blue Ray player.  Phil didn’t make it all the way through, Michael saw it before but couldn’t get into it, I think because he can’t see past the superhero part of it, but Karen said she liked it.  Amanda and I of course had already seen it and liked it a lot.

Everyone else went to bed and Michael and I played some more video games.

Zach Dotsey

Merry Christmas!

Amanda heard a little bit of noise downstairs this morning around 6:30 and, noticing Harvey wasn’t in bed, asked me to make sure he wasn’t nosing around in the presents.  After we came home from church a few weeks ago and discovering that he’d had his way with a few things that were lying around I thought her request was a sensible one.  It just turned to be my mom, who was already awake and moving around.  I ended up staying up and chatting with my parents.  Amanda eventually joined us and we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood with the dogs- Bruce, Harvey and Schatzi.  It was nice enough out that my dad was wearing shorts.  On Christmas Day!

By the time we got back Erin had woken up.  We were all sitting out on the porch, taking turns to take showers, when Adam and Renee arrived.  Amanda and Mom fixed a breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage and biscuits then we cleaned up and opened presents.

Money was a bit tight for everyone this year, so my side of the family decided to do the White Elephant, or whatever you want to call it, where everyone gets one present.  I ended up with a laptop pad from Adam and Renee.  Amanda actually opened it first, then Mom stole it from her and I stole it from Mom.

We all just sat around for a while after that, listening to Christmas music and just chatting away the day.  Around 1:00 I told everyone that we’d need to leave to Amanda’s parents’ house before too long.  I really didn’t want to kick everybody out and hope nobody felt that way, but it was getting on in the day.

Everybody packed up and said their goodbyes and we left the house around 2:00, stopping briefly by Nick and Amy Warkentien’s house to lay out some food for their cat, Gipper, and to clean out the litter box, or as I call it, to go Gipper hunting.  Still no sign of Gipper.  I again assume he’s alive as his litter box had plenty in it, but I looked all over for him and couldn’t find him at all.

Amanda and I called a few people on the way to Richlands to wish them a merry Christmas.  Among those people was my friend, Chris Reeves.  Chris and I had been playing phone tag for a while and I still hadn’t had a chance to tell him we’re having a kid.  I got through to him, but he was at his parents’ house and his reception was bad.  He called me back a few minutes later from his parents’ landline and we started talking, but then I lost my signal on the backroads.  I called him back, but I guess since it was on my work phone the business name came up on the caller ID and nobody answered.  Or maybe they were busy.  Anyway, I left a message and he called back a few minutes later and we finally got to talk for a bit.  I lost my signal yet again a few minutes later though, so when I got a chance I sent him a text message.

When we got to Amanda’s parents house in Richlands we unpacked our stuff then opened presents.  My big one was a PlayStation 3 Blu Ray player.  I was pretty proud of the gift we gave Michael.  We took this picture that Amanda took of him and blew it up large and made it blurry.  We then put it in a shadow box and printed out a smaller, clear version of it and added a quote that he likes to the bottom of it, then mounted the small picture on a few pieces of cardboard to make it look like it’s floating out from the rest of the picture.  I thought it looked really cool, and he was pretty impressed with it.  I was afraid he might not like it because it was a picture of himself, but it’s artsy and his back is to the camera anyway.

My favorite gift that I gave overall was a print by George Pocheptsov, a world-renowned local prodigy.  The print is called Surfer and Amanda’s talked about wanting it for months now to put in the nursery.  We both really like George Pochptsov’s style too, and she was surprised and happy to get it.  I’d gotten her grandfather, Earl Lemons, to make a frame for it.

I had hidden that present away and gave it to Amanda after all the other presents had been opened.  After I did that though, Karen Mercer, Amanda’s mom, went and got her own last present.  For a while now, Karen had been making payments on a limited Dr. Seuss print (at the same gallery where I got the George Pocheptsov print).  She had taken us and Michael to pick out which prints to get because she was planning on willing one to each of them.  Michael found the idea too morbid and didn’t pick one out.  Amanda, though, picked a print with Sam from Green Eggs and Ham.  Karen went upstairs and brought it down, still in its brown packaging paper, saying she found one more present for herself , and went on about wondering what it was.  We all (well, I know all of us but Amanda’s dad, Phil Mercer, knew anyway) what it was and we were like, “Yeah, yeah, just tear it open!” as Karen was gently removing the packaging paper, trying not to tear it.

After a moment she quickly wrapped it back up then laid it across my and Amanda’s laps, and told us Merry Christmas for the baby.  Amanda was just about in tears and I have to admit that it stung my eyes a little.  Amanda had teased Karen about going ahead and giving it to us because it would be great for the nursery.  Karen had indeed bought it for herself, but she decided to go ahead and give it to us for the baby.

Well, after all that we cleaned up a bit then loaded up in Karen’s van and headed over to Beulaville for dinner with Peggy and Earl again.  The Frazelles showed up with a Seinfeld trivia game that Hannah had gotten from her boyfriend, Christian Black.  I was pretty tired so I dozed when it wasn’t my and Karen’s turn.  I felt bad for her having me on her team.  After a little bit though, Dain Dulaney showed up with his kids, Tripp and Anna Hawkins, and Dain joined Karen’s team to lead them to a victory.  There was one question I knew the answer to that nobody else did, I’m proud to say.  The answer was “Biazrro”.

Dain and crew, by the way, were in town because, being from Charlotte, it was going to be a long drive for them to come to the family Christmas get-together tomorrow.  I think they went by Patsy and Bobby Greene’s (the kids’ grandparents) for the day then came on down.  They were leaving for a trip to New York from Charlotte the day after tomorrow.

After we got back to the Mercer house Michael and I spent some time playing Left 4 Dead, a zombie game for the Xbox 360 we had both gotten.  We also played Resistance 2, which he already had but I was given for the PS3.

Zach Dotsey

About a month ago I was warned of the pregnancy crazies by Rich Biagini, whom I sometimes see out at Wrightsville Beach surfing and also plays the keyboard in the Port City Church band.  I proudly told him that my wife hadn’t suffered from the pregnancy crazies yet, but that was before today.  As I noted yesterday, sweet little Pistachio is now producing hormones, and I think they’re affecting his/her mother.

So tonight we’re sitting on the couch, watching TV.  Amanda’s favorite show is How I Met Your Mother, and when the theme song comes on a couple minutes into the show she always belts it out: “Ba, babababa, ba ba ba ba, da da, ba dadadadadada da da!”  Sometimes, just to mess with her, I’ll pause it right before the first Ba.  Joking around, never had an issue, right?

You can probably see where this is going already.

So she tells me to rewind it, which I always do so she can go ahead and sing it, but when I rewind it to the beginning of the song she says that no, I messed the whole thing up and I’ve got to rewind it to the beginning of the whole show.  Well, I enjoy the show but I didn’t want to watch the whole opening segment again, and I thought she was joking anyway, so I tell her I’m not going to do that.  Then she threatens to erase all the My Name is Earls on the DVR that I haven’t watched yet and I’m like, “Okay,” sarcastic-like, you know?

So that goes on for a minute then she gets up and starts to go upstairs all angry.  I incredulously ask if she’s really mad, at which point she tells me she thinks it’s the pregnancy hormones.  I rewind the whole show for her and try to tease her a little, telling her that I don’t think I’ll be able to put up with six months of that, and she starts crying and laughing at the same time!  I just wanted a baby, not six months of bipolarism!

Other than that the day was pretty ho hum.  At work there was a lot done on creating a new e-newlsetter server.  It was a little hectic early in the morning though.  After work I played Halo 3 a bit with Jason Revill.  It was the first he’d played online except for some co-op missions we played together a while back.  He did okay considering it was his frist time.  Before we got off I started a one-on-one game to familiarize him with one of the levels a little, which was kind of fun.

The On Demand and HD channels were working fine this morning, by the way.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda and I slept in until about 10:00 today, which was a nice little change.  My plan was to get up and mow the yard, but it was drizzling out, which is how it stayed pretty much all day today.  On the subject of needing to mow the lawn, the good thing, I noticed today, about having pine trees that drop pine needles all over the place is they make the grass not look so tall.

Amanda and I went to Atlanta Bread for breakfast then came home and picked up a bit, since her parents, Phil and Karen Mercer, were coming by.  A friend of Karen’s sold them a washer which they were bringing down here for Michael.  I was continuing my streak of dominance in College Hoops 2K7 when they arrived.

Phil and I, in a truck borrowed from Amanda’s grandfather, Earl Lemons, went over to Michael’s.  He’d just gotten off work and was taking a shower when we got there, but we went ahead and took the washer up, which wasn’t the most pleasant of tasks.  We hooked that up then the three of us went to Lowe’s, where Amanda and Karen had looked at ceiling fans for Karen and Phil’s new sunroom and had started to look at dryers for Michael.

The dryer was a lot lighter than the washer.

Phil spent some time hooking that up at Michael’s apartment while I watched some of the Duke and Miami football game.  By the time we got back to my house Duke was leading 17-14.  Karen had gotten some steak for dinner and they were making baked potatoes and salad which we all, Michael included, ate while watching football.  Carolina was playing Virginia at the same time, so we kept switching back and forth.  The good news is that Virginia beat Carolina in overtime.  The bad news is that Miami beat Duke, 49-31.  When Duke was up, Michael was predicting that Duke was going to lose 40-something to 20-something, and he was being a bit cocky about it.  It was only fitting that Carolina lost their game just a few minutes later.

Karen helped clean the kitchen (going above and beyond and really doing a nice job) then they all left.  Nick and Amy Warkentien called to see about getting together and playing Settlers of Catan or something, but again Amanda didn’t much feel like going out, so we’re just sitting around doing nothing.  At least it’s allowing me to do my entries on here the day of, instead of sometime during the week.  That’s a weekend rarity.

Michael let me borrow Bioshock, but I think I might play a bit more College Hoops 2K7.  I feel like finishing out my season at Ole Miss and seeing which recruits I end up landing.

Speaking of college sports, the Duke Blue Devils had their Blue-White scrimmage today.  The main points to what I’ve read are that Nolan Smith should start as the point guard over senior team captain and three-year starter Greg Paulus, that Gerald Henderson is going to blow up this year, that Martynas Pocius might get a shot at some decent backup playing time and that freshman Miles Plumlee should start at center.  Most everyone else played about as expected (for good or bad).  Of course, it was just an exhibition and practices have only just begun, so a lot may change before any real games start.

Zach Dotsey