DanLog the ramblings of Daniel Pettit

This might be hard for some of you to believe but I just downloaded my first commercial MP3 (well I actually “paid” with some Pepsi Points). A painless process through Amazon.com and I can use my song on any MP3 player unlike those other sites.

Today was my 21st wedding anniversary. I didn’t want the day to just pass like any other day. Lauren and I would normally go out to dinner on our anniversary. Being that at the moment its more of a Happy Adversary Day for by beloved, she really wouldn’t be interested in joining me. A minor technicality like that is not going to keep me from taking my Bunny-Bear out on a date.

A few weeks before Easter I just happened to look through the Easter supplemental flyer from Albertson’s and low and behold I spotted a Bunny-Bear, which is one of my pet names for Lauren. When I went to the store they only had one left, I took that as a sign from God. I figured I’d give it to her on Easter. Well she was lets say less than receptive to my invitation to Easter service so the Bunny-Bear was regulated to the bench.

So I took my Bunny-Bear out on a date to Claim Jumper. This served three purposes.

1. Not let my 21st pass unacknowledged.
2. Challenge my self consciousness by of course taking a stuffed animal out to dinner.
3. It has been a while since I had a mud pie.

So I did, had a good meatloaf, a mediocre mud pie, and no one carted me off to the funny farm. (It probably helped that I didn’t order my date a Strawberry-Mango-Banana Daiquiri)

To complete the date night we went on a photo shoot. I’ll tell you something it is much easier when you have a model not to mention that you get better results when you have a photogenic subject.

Here is the 7000th photo taken on my Canon EOS 30D. Considering the subject matter it is actually not that awful.

The Supreme Court today decided to make up for its incorrect meddling in States rights this week ( the unconstitutionality ruling for the death penalty for child rape [I'd don't have a clear opinion on whether to have child rape as a capital offense or not. I do feel that decision is up to the individual state to decide.] ) and struck down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. One could say that the Court feels the “proper” punishment for a child rapist is not via the State but by the parent exercising their Second Amendment right.

I must say that the ruling was somewhat of a surprise to me particularly given the Greening, Globalization and Wimpification of the High Court. Sadly I’m only half joking when I say that I thought it more likely for the Supreme Court to Affirm the Right To Arm Bears especially given the “dire” straits of our pigmentally challenged neighbors to the North.

I think these words of a dead white man speak for themselves:

“Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would.”
— John Adams, Boston Gazette, Sept. 5, 1763

So I dropped off my entry into the 2008 OC Fair Photography competition. I entered three but they only accepted one same as Lauren last year in the Fine Art competition. There were 2700 photo entries this year. I’ll have to wait a month to see if I won anything – admittedly a long shot.

So I’m watching Lost second season and it is the episode when the black man from the tail section tells Locke that he has something he should see. The starts telling his story by saying he needs to start at the beginning. Speaking of Josiah King of Jerusalem. Locke interjects, “When you said starting at the begging you weren’t kidding”. The man who’s characters name escapes me tells the story of 2 Kings 22. King Josiah decrees the temple be repaired and the treasury emptied to pay for it, they also find a book, the book of the law.

Anyway what I find odd is I just read that verse either last night or the night before. I don’t see any relevance to my life at the moment so I’m just going to chalk this one up to coincidence. Which interestingly enough the black man also said to Locke that coincidence is not necessarily fate.

And once again I just had to laugh out loud at how they ended the episode. A few days ago I was in some sort of hysterics on how just how clever, absurd and talented and evil the writers of Lost are in how they can cliffhang just about every episode.

Okay people this is not funny any more. My pizza just went up in price for the second time this year $19.50 for a medium. Why don’t we start drilling for oil which we all know that we will use every last drop of eventually so lets just get it over with and stop turning our food into gasoline.

My fill-up finally reached north of a bill today, well it would have it my Amex card hadn’t stopped at $99. I was running on fumes so my complete fill-up would have been very close if not over $110.00.

They announced Catalyst at Sunday’s service so I was expecting a larger turnout, they also moved it to the lab instead of the centre which I thought was a bit odd. Anyway There was at least three times more people tonight. The lab was almost full. Doug followed basically the same format. My group of three was two other women and it was their first time at Catalyst. I sheepishly volunteered for prayer position #3 and this time we doubled back and did a second round. I had to pray for Hope and then the Reach Ministry. Not so bad this time, but I’ve got a long long way to go before my prayers poignant, powerful and plentiful. I could do a pretty good job if I had the luxury of a studio setting where I could pause start stop contemplate and repeat and then edit those three minutes into a bomber 30 second prayer. Maybe that’s not a gift for me or I just need some remedial hearing lessons or just practice makes perfect. I was actually more anxious before the session started once that first mini group prayer was over its time to relax for me as that’s the only real hard part now.

The group prayer for groups was rather unwieldy with the mob of people. They had three groups to pray for tonight: Uganda, Dominican Republic and the Panama ministries. It turned out to be a prayer cocoon as the 6-15? group members were completely surrounded 4 to 5 deep. Laying of hands was a chain event tonight. Pastor Todd led worship tonight and I either knew most of the songs or at least could follow the tune. The worship was good thought it would have been great if I wasn’t struggling with my
sciatica pain. My leg was screaming a bit and I just could not find a good way to stand and relieve it. Sitting was fine.

I received prayer from Bob a gentleman of indeterminate age over 50. He hit some good points and had a steady warm flow into me. Toward the end of Bob’s prayer my leg was hollering up a storm I had to ponder if this wasn’t the enemy trying to disrupt the message. Once I sat down the pain went away and hasn’t returned yet. I also saw Jason who I met at the last Catalyst, he recognized me but we didn’t get a chance to speak. And once again my Angels Brittney and Monica weren’t present as far as I could tell with that large group. I guess they have more important things to do than to have me fawn over them as they already accomplished their assignment with me two months ago.

Spotted my first Smart Car in the wild today driving home on the 5 near DizzyLand.

So it is about 9PM and I head upstairs to start getting ready for bed. I only have the stairway light on which spills enough light into my bedroom so I don’t immediately turn on a light. I step into my bedroom and out of the corner of my eye I notice something out of place. Actually something that shouldn’t be there. There is something dark on the wall where there shouldn’t be. As I gingerly go get a closer look, I had a bad feeling but couldn’t accept that something that large was on my bedroom wall. Okay six feet away I can clearly see that I’m being visited by an extra from the the movie Mimic. It is the largest cockroach I’ve ever seen outside of the Nature Channel. Yes, I kid you not after 26 years in the restaurant industry this is the biggest by far, I’m used to tiny German roaches. I’ve seen similar ones outside in random places but not this size. In fact this is the first personal encounter I’ve really had with the “American Cockroach” some people around the states have some euphemisms for them such as: “water bug” and Palmetto bug”. Oh and they can fly if the weather is warm enough, isn’t that a lovely thought. I had previously thought such monstrosity were the sole domain of Jungle countries.

Horrified as I was I nevertheless ran for, of course, my camera. Praying that the flash would send him running I snapped this picture.

Okay now to the bathroom for a wad of paper-towels. Okay walk over to the beast, just another ordinary bug eradication but wait this time its different. I get within spiting distance and spy my prey then the wad of towels in my hand a quick calculation results in a very unsatisfactory ratio of hand to bug size. I have the feeling of trying to pluck a rat off the wall with a Kleenex. Having lost my nerve I calmly back away from the monster. Okay get it together Daniel. A quick prayer for proficient bug killing, then some guilt for asking for a gift of murder then the satisfying realization of having dominion and I charge back to my quarry. I snatch him off in one move I’m squeezing my fist as much as I can but those twelve foot long feelers just keep a twitching. To the bathroom floor where I drop the towel and proceed to apply the “Heel of Judgement”. Upon inspection of my now squished and very dead visitor he isn’t as impressive. But on the wall as you can see above with his feelers and hind legs extended plus his wings slightly flared out he was a sight to behold or revolt.

So the horror is receding but now the denial, the this can’t be where the hell did he come from how could that have really been on my bedroom wall. I ponder the possibilities and come up short for an obvious answer. First off I’ve never seen an American Cockroach of any size in my house or garage, though we’ve had less than oh say six Oriental cockroaches over the past 12 years and none since the entire community was tented for termites several years ago. My bedroom is completely sealed nothing anywhere near that size can get in as the entire floor is sealed shut. I caulked the perimeter to the sub-floor before I installed the hardwood. He might have come up the shower drain downstairs as the trap is cracked and doesn’t hold water so it is open to the sewer, but that is one long walk upstairs just to hang out over my pillow or he came through the attic down the through the furnace closet. My neighbor is moving after living there for 45 years so I have thought that she might have disturbed this fellow that had been happily living alone (I hope) in one of her closets that she never enters, munching on cardboard glue or what not. How’d he get so big??? Why my bedroom.

Anyway I head outside to my truck to get my flashlight to do some recon and see if there are any more visitors. I ran into my neighbor Bill who was getting some air. We haven’t shot the breeze in sometime, he asks me how I was and I had other stories in mind than what he was expecting me to reply to. After my bug update, he got a Lauren update and I got an update of his family worries and jewels, but that is another story. Running into Bill like this felt like a God hookup as I needed the 45 minutes or so to focus on something other than my visitor before I get to sleep under where that thing was. As well as adding an issue to my prayer list.

I look everywhere and don’t find a thing. I hope I don’t have any nightmares. If Lauren had been here I’m fairly confident we would have been sleeping at the Marriott tonight.

Here you can see my bedroom with out the prehistoric wall decoration. Note the strategic position almost above my pillow.

For you marketing majors here is a real world example of demographic research. You won’t be seeing this billboard in Newport Beach. Apart from being briefly confused as to which country I was driving through, I also had to ponder if I had traveled back in time as well. How many mothers do you know that sew dresses for their daughters these days and that is a bonding experience??