Congratulations to Journey

Journey's song, Don't Stop Believin' became the first catalog song to cross 2 million downloads. You can read about it here. In honor of that feat, this is for your listening pleasure.

I think we're moving to the city

After much consideration, I think Dawn and I have come to the conclusion to move to Greensboro so she can be close to Moses Cone. Saturday, Dawn and I each picked two apartments to check out. I picked The Lofts in downtown and Dawn picked Lathym Park off Bessemer. We went to The Lofts first. They had a 1300 sq ft, two bedroom, two bath apartment for $975. I didn't think this was too bad considering everything that they offer: sauna, workout area, hot tub, free trash and water, free internet, secure parking area and living area. Very safe and secure and the apartment was great... unfortunately, a little steep for my fireman's salary.

Next we went to check out Dawn's pick, Lathym Park. We had trouble locating the apartments so we called the rental agency and told them and they said they would call the rep that was supposed to meet us. Now, Dawn's instructions were to meet this guy at the intersection of West Bessemer Ave and Hill St. This should have raised a red flag. Finally we find the place and my first impression is that we are in the projects. Dawn assures me that these are older apartments. We find the corner of Hill and Bessemer. Nobody is there so I park and we get out. I expected to see an office somewhere. No office. No people. Just rundown apartments with people looking at us standing on the street corner. I half expected to get solicited for sex or crack. About this time, a guy pulls up in a Grand Cherokee and says, "follow me." Then he drives off. We get in the car and follow and I'm not happy with how this is playing out. We have no idea who this guy is and where we're following him to. He pulls in front of an apartment and gets out and only now, does he introduce himself. Luckily, he is the rep from the rental place and he takes us inside. To be honest, it is better on the inside than I could have imagined and the price is like $450 per month. But I will pay $500 extra dollars to know that my wife's chances of getting raped are greatly reduced.

Anyway, on the way home, we passed by a place just south of Greensboro called the Gardens at Anthony House. We stopped in and really liked the place. It is brand new, has a lot of amenities, and the price is about right. So, it looks like we've found our place.
http://www.apartmentguide.com/apartments/North-Carolina/Greensboro/The-Gardens-at-Anthony-House/80617/

Snow

They are calling for snow for tonight and tomorrow. Perhaps around 3 inches or so. I hope it snows two feet. I'd like a good snow for a change and skip all the ice that we normally get.

Dash

The preacher who came to the fire department to do our Sunday school service last Sunday, said something that made me think. In reference to seeing a date of birth and a date of death on a tombstone, the only real thing that sums that person up is the dash between the two dates. Everything about who we are, how we acted, who we impacted is all based upon the dash. The dash, when done appropriately, makes the two dates surrounding it seem inconsequential. They were merely borders for the dash. Anyway, just a different view on things that I appreciated.

My age and the internet

I was talking to one of the younger guys here at the fire dept. and trying to explain that back in the old days of the internet, you couldn't just type anything you wanted. You had to know EXACTLY what you wanted. All punctuation had to be there, every word had to be spelled correctly, and every letter had to be in proper case. If you wanted to create a webpage, you only had one option... top to bottom. There wasn't even a table format yet so you could put things side by side. I remember having email and asking my friend at Chapel Hill for his email address. He asked what I was talking about and said he'd never heard of such a thing. We didn't have any Facebook, Myspace, youtube or anything like that. Kids these days...

Did I just say that? Which gets me back to my age... Dawn's grandfather just passed away. He was born in 1918. He could remember the first airplane that ever flew over. He could remember outhouses. He was chronicled in a local magazine as one of the first farmers to utilize electricity on his farm and I thought wow, this guy had really seen a lot. Now my niece looks at me the same way when I talk about the internet or old computers. I can't even imagine what my kids or grandkids will think. Now I'm depressed.

In honor of Travis and my friends in Raleigh

Went to Raleigh to see Travis, my college roommate, who was in from Germany. Had a great time eating, drinking, and playing our little Natureboy games. For some reason, I got to looking around the Natureboys.net site and stumbled upon Mike Rudd's history for how all of us met originally. I think multiple accounts of how we met have been written but I haven't found any of them and Mike's is good. Below is a repost of his dialog. You can also click here to read more.

The Beginning

Basically the beginning started at governor's school in the summer of the year 1993. It was the summer between junior and senior years, and Dennis, Travis, and Jim all made off to governor's school.
***Editors note: the Natureboy himself was invited to this said school, but declined because of personal reasons, just in case at any point you think said Natureboy is an idiot for any reason. ***
Anyway, not much is known outside this triumphrate of the whos, the whats, or the wheres of what happened that summer. So we'll just leave it at this. They had met. Little did they know of the things to come.
Later in 1994, most interested parties came to NC State. Christina and Mike from Statesville High, Casey from North Iredell, Andrew and Dennis from Union Pines, Travis and Michael from Eastern Randolph, Jim from Roxboro, and Jeremy from South Caldwell. All from in and around the state. So how did all of the parties meet. Well here's where it gets funny. We know from previous discussions that Travis, Jim, and Dennis already knew each other. As logically deduced, each pair from the same high school also already know each other. Other lines drawn were Casey with Mike and Christina from YMCA swimming encounters and being from the same city.
Well then came rooming arrangements. Travis obviously roomed with Caviness as well as Dennis roomed with Andrew. Weirdly enough they were in separate suites, but lived on opposite sides of the same wall. Thus further solidifying Travis and Dennis and bringing Caviness(Michael if your scoring at home) and Andrew together. In the same suite as Andrew/Dennis was Jeremy and Mike. Jeremy living with a random assorted group of young men(don't go there please) and Mike living with the RA. Oh what fun. Christina stationed herself 2 floors above in the same building. Off in another, more air conditioned, building lived Casey and Jim. This drawing a line between Bragaw and Sullivan dormitories. Not to mention the line already formed between Jim/Dennis/Travis and Mike/Casey from olden times, and the new Jeremy/Mike/Dennis/Andrew line from suite 702. "So where does the chick fit in" you ask? I was just getting to that. In olden days...high school.. said broad was the significant other of Mike(not the Asian Michael, don't get these confused). Though a summer sort of "off" happened, the were side by side in the early years of their college experience.
So there you have it. That's how all the lines were drawn, the ties tied, the arrangements made, the... that's enough. You get it. This was the instigation, the original 9, the infamous beginning of the Natureboys.

Productivity

My wife is the most productive person in the world. Every minute needs to be used to either help someone else or make yourself better somehow. Typical conversation between us:
Dawn: What are you going to do today?
Me: I don't know... thinking about watching TV or playing video games maybe... What do you have planned?
Dawn: Well... I will be teaching a diabetes class, balancing the checkbook, researching new cures for diseases, brushing up on my spanish, paying bills, working on the christmas play for church, helping my grandma... of course, this is just what I'm going to do before lunch.
Me: Uhhh....
Dawn: Just think of what you could be doing if you weren't playing video games... perhaps learning another language or something useful.

Andrew and I discussed this the other night. We decided that playing video games could be useful... let's say Dawn and I are walking down the street and suddenly find a plasma rifle. She isn't going to know how to use it, unless the directions are in spanish. But my halo playing skills would suddenly be of extreme usefulness. I would know what to do with this weapon... and I would also know that there's a rocket launcher somewhere around...

Useless? I think not.