Small Joys

This afternoon I've been in a surprisingly good mood. This is in contrast to my latest series of ups & downs over the past few days. Right before I left the office I answered a phone call. They asked for pastor wiley. I of course smiled, mostly because I knew I was talking to a telemarketer...but not just a telemarketer...a christian telemarketer. I played along. "Sorry, no pastor wiley here." They sounded shocked..."isn't this Hillside Foursquare Church?" "Yes." "Then who's the pastor?" "Who are you with?" "A ministry in Texas...who is your pastor?" The guy really sounded bothered. That was ok with me. I waited a second & hung up. About 3 minutes later the phone rang & I answered with a normal hello. It went something like this.

"Hello?" "How about Louie Locke? He's the pastor." "Yes, there is a pastor louie at this church." "Then why didn't you just tell me who the pastor was?" He was quite agitated at this point & I of course picked up on that. "Excuse me sir, what ministry are you with in Texas?" He responded, "I doubt you're even a ministry by how you're talking to me!" I responded, "Is that supposed to make me do something?" He hung up. I hope he calls tomorrow or maybe writes an email. That is one of the better calls I've had recently. But there was this drunk guy who was calling weekly. He was pretty weird. Kept talking about needing a miracle, his meds, & a couple perverts who were trying to get him to do stuff he didn't want to. Who wouldn't want to answer the phones @ the church?

Economic Stimulus

I got some economic stimulus today at the Nugget. I won the Texas hold em tournament for the first time. I won with a nice big full house. Somehow, my winning also enabled Brint to take 3rd place & a good amount of money. I decided to do my part stimulate the economy. You should expect a big market rebound soon.
We found a good sushi/chinese food place today with the Harder Trio. CJ Palace next to Chili's on Los Altos. No menu restrictions for lunch. The food tasted fresh which is a plus & the service was excellent. No complaints. We followed it up with trip to Ross & got Ellie a few more books to read. Jessica & Ellie also got colorful slippers, not quite matching, but equally cute. It was nice to be off today. It felt like a Friday. I'm not motivated for tomorrow because I know what's waiting for me. Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll have the projects finished. Side note: Ellie laughs when she burps & farts. Actually we laugh together.

The Sheel's 5k

This saturday the fam decided to do the inaugural Sheel's 5k. They called it the 1st annual Sheel's 5k. Brint wondered if you could call it annual if it's the first one. Any thoughts? The Weez came along too. She walked with Jessica & Baby Todd & I ran with Brint. It was fairly poor weather with the wind but without wind it would've been nice with the 50 degree temp. We arrived to get our packets at 7:15, which gave us 45 min until the race. I seem to have a pre-race tradition of a deuce finding its way to the chamber. The guy at Sheel's pointed me to the Johnny on the spot. No thanks, I did that at Tahoe during the last race. We decided Starbucks would be nice. It was. Clean bathroom. Right before the race started, this younger dude came over to us & stated that he was a first time runner & had trained for about 10 days. I let him know that I suggest starting slow & finding some young ladies to run behind. He'd be fine if he stuck with that. We started the race & I was surprised at how many were running fast. Or maybe that's an indication of me running slow...

I wasn't impressed with the costumes people wore, but I did have a few highlights. First was Brint trying to pin his number on his chest while running. That was brave & pretty humorous. Second was the smell. Probably not what you're thinking...I kept smelling chocolate chip cookies. It turned out that it was the Sheel's fudge factory cooking it up fresh. It was awesome. I finished the race without major problems & I was only 19 seconds slower than my previous tuesday run where I about killed myself. Baby Todd was pissed. She hates heavy winds in her face.

As we crossed the finish line we were greeted by a very good cover band. I don't underestimate their talent. These guys were really good. They were playing stuff from the 60's & 70's. Baby Todd thought they were too loud & I agreed. Sadly, my ankle hurts this morning. I think it's a combination of the running mixed with soccer yesterday. I guess that's all part of it.