LOTS OF WEEKEND NEWS

Alright...

For those of you checking in to see what my new job will be ... I'm now the Marketing Manager for my city's Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

Basically, I'm the guy that has to come up with ideas to lure people to come visit our city and once they get here, I've got to come up with several ideas to keep them busy.

It's going to be an awesome job, simply awesome. Mainly because my city is undergoing several changes right now. We're building a huge baseball stadium, expanding our civic center, building a huge hotel downtown, an ampitheatre for concerts, and a riverwalk which will be a boardwalk stretching down the side of the Alabama River that will be full of cool little restaurants, bars and shops.

The connections that I'll be making with this job are endless. I'll be hobnobbing with the mayor on a weekly basis. I'll meet and work along with several heads of businesses in town.

I'll be working inside the local Train Station that is one of the more historic buildings in town. Trains still go by the station, but don't stop there anymore.

I'll also be in charge of the website for the tourist center, giving it a major overhaul.

Not only will this job look great on a resume someday, I've been told the job is a "career ender", something that I'll want to stay with for the rest of my working days.

I'm certainly looking forward to it and am honored to have the position.

Now then ... other news...

I woke up at 2:30 a.m. to the lovely sounds of the Tornado Warning Sirens going off.

I turned on the TV and it's all "GET DOWN! GET ON THE GROUND AND THROW A BLANKET OVER YOUR HEAD! IF YOU HAVE A BLANKET OVER YOUR HEAD, THERE'S NO WAY THE TORNADO CAN GET YOU!!"

Like blankets are a tornado's kryptonite or something.

I was awake from 2:30 - 4 a.m., riding out this terrible storm from the comfort of our bed.

I wasn't going to go wake a two year-old up, shove him in a closet with a blanket over his head and then try to get him to go back to sleep an hour later.

No thanks, Mother Nature.

But man...it got ugly here. I got up and looked out into the front yard and I think a good portion of my neighbor's yard was washed away.

It could have been my yard.

I guess we'll find out once the sun comes up.

We had our yard sale on Saturday.

I got a horrible sunburn. Not nearly as bad as Susie's...but bad.

At least my sunburn looks natural. Susie's left the top of her arms beet red and then the bottoms are fishy white.

I've decided that I treat my yard sales as if they're parties. I'm walking around, trying to crack people up while they look through my stuff.

After a few hours, I started welcoming everyone to my "Driveway o' Crap"!

We have this book that I kept at the end of the driveway called "How To Satisfy A Man Every Time (And Leave Him Begging For More)". I actually interviewed the author several years ago and the book was even personally autographed by her.

Anyway, if a lady was looking at something, I'd sneak up on her and just say quietly "I can tell you're checking this book out out of the corner of your eye. You want this book. More importantly, you neeeeed this book. Tell ya what...fifty cents and it's yours. And I promise...it will change your life."

Got quite a few chuckles out of people over the book.

And I still own the damned thing.

The yard sale was probably the worst we've ever had. We're used to making at least a thousand dollars every time we have a yard sale.

We could have made that much with this one if we weren't buried in the back of the subdivision at the end of a long cul-de-sac.

But we made almost $500.

Which is pretty good, really.

You know...considering my former workplace still hasn't given me my paycheck from last week and we had about $30 in the bank.

For a while there, we were ready to quit our church.

Then we changed our mind because there were so many changes going on in our lives, we figured we needed to keep something constant so we decided to stay in church for another year.

Now Susie's ready to quit today.

Mainly because I ran into some now-former members of our church at Walmart Friday night (trying to find Garage Sale signs).

These people quit a few weeks ago and we didn't know why. So I asked them point blank and they told me point blank.

I've got to admit, some of their reasons for leaving I agreed with...others I didn't.

But they definitely told me some stuff that I had no idea that was going on.

I came home and told the stuff to Susie and she was furious.

Her major beef was the fact that our new minister was hired because she gave the shortest sermon out of all the people they interviewed.

After she preached for 11 minutes, the head of the search committee turned to the other members and said "11 minutes. It looks like we've found our new minister."

So we didn't go to church yesterday and I cancelled some meetings that I was in charge of for yesterday afternoon.

There's other reasons, but they're a bit too controversial for this diary, so I'll stay away from them here.

But I expect to turn in a resignation letter to the church sometime in the next two weeks.

Yay!

I can't believe David Bloom from NBC's "Weekend Today" died in Iraq.

They just showed a picture of he and his wife and their three young daughters on TV.

He was 39 years old.

Too sad.

We went shopping Saturday night for some new clothes.

Susie got five new outfits for under $200.

I got five new outfits for $750.

Something ain't right there.

One thing's for sure, I'm going to look a whole lot better than my wife.

But hey...what's new...right?

And finally ... Andrew said his first sentence this weekend.

Friday night, he put in one of his godforsaken "Baby Einstein" tapes that always starts with a toy bug crawling across the screen.

And he just blurted out "I see a bug!"

We were all "YES! YES! YOU SEE A BUG!!"

Then we're asking him "Do you see a dog? Do you see a cat?"

And he's repeating "I see a dog! I see a cat!"

This goes on for a while until it gets old and he just watches the tape in joyous silence.

So I'm sitting on the couch in my cotton shorts that I wear to bed.

He walks over to me, standing in front of me and for some reason, he tugs the crotch of my shorts aside.

"I see your balls," he says innocently.

It was the first time he had me and Susie in stitches.

And yes, for those of you quick enough to figure it out...both my wife and I start great new jobs today.

Wish us well!