There are some days where your heart aches for dear friends. We have some fabulous friends who moved to Wisconsin recently and I thought a lot about them today. It is rare when your children find play mates in your friends as well. We miss you and think of you often.

Tonight a couple gal pals and myself ventured to the E center to relive NKOTB. The tickets, as josh said, were free so why not. We were jammin out with Natasha Bettingfield when we noticed that David Archuleta was right in front of us! Of course the cameras came out but we didn’t want to bother him while he was obviously enjoying Natasha. (Those AI viewers may remember she was on the show with him last season.) We were so excited! After Natasha finished he got up and left. That’s okay we still got to watch the New Kids do their stuff. After the second encore we decided to leave and beat most of the traffic. We got in the car and noticed David Archuleta right next to us. We screamed we love you, we voted for you every week, can we have your autograph, can we get a picture of you? In his sweet voice and with a shrug he said yeah!!!!!!!!!!! Now my NKOTB ticket is autographed by David and I have a picture with him. That was the high light of the night. I will post the picture and scan in his autograph at a later date. That was so much better than meeting Bob Shaw! This night will be remembered forever as the night David used my pen.

I’m almost embarrassed to say it but my wife and a couple of her friends are going to the New Kids on the Block concert tonight. They scored some free tickets and decided to go. I had no idea they were even still together as a group. Now I kinda wish they weren’t.

When we went to the funeral last week on Freedom, Idaho, I made sure to get a photo of Byron next to his great grandather’s grave marker. This is the person after whom he was named.

I’ve included the photo with this post.

Some things I think I think:

• I wish I were heartbroken about McCain losing.
• I wish I were even remotely happy about Obama’s victory.
• I wish there were even a little bit of investigative journalism into Obama’s and Biden’s backgrounds like there was with Palin.
• I cannot believe that Bush’s approval rating is so low.
• I cannot believe that Congress’ approval rating is even lower.
• I cannot believe we elected one of those congressional yokels to become the next president.
• I wish there were a major party candidate for whom I could have voted.  Neither one was worthy of my vote.
• “Change We Can Believe In” will result in more of the same.  The Republicans and Democrats will still hate each other.   Congress will still suck like nothing else.  Bush will still get blamed for everything that goes wrong in Obama’s first two years as President.
• Make that only two years if Bush is lucky.
• As unexcited as I am about an Obama presidency, I will give him the respect that many on the left never gave President Bush.  From day one, Bush has been blamed for everything under the sun and much of it has been completely unfair.  I certainly don’t agree with a lot of what he did as President, but I’m certainly not under the delusion that he’s the most evil person in history.  Remember the Bush = Hitler signs and all that garbage?  Well, c’mon people!  Bush is not Hitler.  Hitler was Hitler and there’s a huge difference.  If that’s not apparent to you then you need to take a step back, take a deep breath, choke down a chill pill, and get a grip.  Don’t get so worked up about stuff.
• We need a strong third political party in this country.  It will help keep the other two honest.  It will force them to actually work for us as our representatives rather than for themselves.
• I don’t think Sarah Palin was a bad choice for McCain’s running mate.  My mom, on the other hand didn’t like her.  She couldn’t give any actual reasons for this, though, so I don’t know what else Palin could have done to gain her vote.  “I just didn’t like her.”  Hmm.  Sounds like great political discourse.  Am I allowed to just not like Obama?  Nope.  Then I’d be racist.
• I’m just glad it’s over.  I was sick of it a year ago.  Imagine how sick of it I am now.

I bought tickets to the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, this Friday night.  Nate, Nate, McKay and I are having a “guys night out” and are going to spend it watching what is hopefully as action-packed and exciting as it’s predecessor, Casino Royale.  For me, Casino Royale set the bar for Bond movies and Daniel Craig is THE Bond.  The torture scene in Royale was brutal but still had two of the best lines ever.  I’m sure you all can guess which ones!

Tonight, I’ve been listening to the following:

Van Morrison - Into the Mystic
The Wallflowers - Into the Mystic
I’m trying to decide which version of that song I like better. Either way, they’re both on my five star playlist.

Dave Mathews Band - DMB Live Trax album
This album is phenomenal. I don’t like a ton of the live versions of songs that I already know in their studio version. This, however, is different. I absolutely love the song Two Step. It’s about 13 minutes long but is really fantastic.

Jim Croce - I’ve Got a Name
This is a great 1970s song. I heard it on the soundtrack for the movie Invincible and put it on my list of songs to get when they were available on iTunes. I also got You Don’t Mess Around With Jim by Jim Croce as it’s a pretty fun song.

You know, I bought Melanie an iPhone back in April. All this time, I’ve been using my work BlackBerry while she had the iPhone and I finally got tired of being jealous of it. When I got my prize money a few weeks ago for that weight loss competition that I won, I went and remedied the situation. I blew it all on an iPhone 3G and now have it as my work phone. I really don’t miss my CrackBerry at all and can only think of one thing I liked better on it: battery life. It’s not a big deal, though, as I just charge the thing whenever I’m driving, sleeping, or even I’m just sitting at my desk at work. I love the thing. I can see why Melanie always teased me about having a cooler phone than me.

I had my final follow-up doctors appointment today with the surgeon who performed my surgery.  While the bone is still a little loose and I can feel it in my teeth when I push on the bone at the corner of my eye, I’m doing remarkably well.  The headaches are dissipating and the discoloration beneath my eye is 99% faded.  I can still tell it’s there but that’s because I was pretty accustomed to the coloration of my own face prior to the accident.

Just like any other Sunday we were at church today. Betsy and Ryan were in primary, David and Byron were in their respective classes, as were Josh and I. My class ended a couple minutes early so I walked by where Betsy and Ryan were. As I got to the doors I hear my sweet four year olds raspy voice, “my mom has really hairy legs so she has to shave them off.” Oh dear I hope I didn’t heat that right. Unfortunately, upon further investigation I heard it exactly right. Kids say the darndest things, thankfully there were only about 20 adults and 40 kids to witness these words.