29 Jul

I’m a Freakin’ Genius

My goal for this fall is to take an EMT certification class (you know, the ambulance people). Wade is going to be gone during the week, and there is a technical college literally next door to my office. Even better is that the college offers a night course. Being the slacker that I am, I didn’t turn in my application until July 20th and they were of course due by July 30th. I checked the status online and it turns out I have to take an entrance exam (This of course is listed no where on their website). Only an SAT score within the last 5 years would satisfy the requirement. This led me to believe the test was an SAT type test. Now the SAT isn’t that bad, but some of the math I knew I’d need a refresher for.

Well, I downloaded some sample questions and brushed up on my math skills – I don’t really ever use geometry or trig anymore. Then I took time off work to take this untimed test. I almost laughed out loud in the testing center. The reading comprehension was several 3 paragraph essays with 3 questions. And these weren’t thought provoking questions. These questions were directly taken from the essay and if you didn’t know the answer, it didn’t take long to reread the right paragraph. The second section of the test was writing skills. I was given 3 more paragraphs and had to find the grammatical errors. There were multiple choice answers which would contain double negatives, mixed verb tenses, etc. Once again, cake. Then I get to the math section. It was entirely prealgebra with questions such as if Sue is going this fast and Jane is going that fast, when do they meet. It took a little longer, but no big deal.

Because the test is computerized, I was supposed to wait for my results. This woman comes in with a huge smile on her face and tells me I scored perfect in every section. Then she says “You don’t look surprised.” What do I say to that? Do I make fun of their test? It’s obvious they don’t get many people scoring that well – which kind of makes me wonder what kind of people take classes at their college….. Before I got out of the building, I had 4 women working in the department come congratulate me on my score – hmm.

24 Jul

Hold On Just A Minute

After a long, hard day of sitting by the pool for me and thesis writing for Wade, we decided dinner was going to be Papa John’s. Since we have lived in this house, we have ordered a few times from the same particular Papa John’s. We have never had a “real” phone line so I was rather confused when the boy answering the phone seemed at a loss on how to handle no home phone. Our entire conversation was ridiculous. This boy is a perfect example for the stereotypical young, low wage worker. Instead of “um”, “ah”, or any other verbal place holder, he used “hold on just a minute”. He did not mean, I am putting you on hold or this will take a second. Normally as soon as he got the words out of his mouth he was asking another question or talking again. Very odd.

Then my favorite part of the conversation. I wanted to know the price difference between a medium and large pizza. His response was, “The price varies.” We have a real genius here. I asked again what the actual prices were and he came up with the price for the large. He told me he guessed the medium would be less. Then the boy remembered they were having a promotion. I asked if the promotion price made the large as cheap as the medium and he told me “I guess.” This whole thing is filled with lots of “hold on a minute”.

I finally got my pizza ordered and it was delicious once delivered, but wow – what a trying phone conversation!

21 Jul

Oxymoron

My parents used to send my sister and I to visit my Aunt Gayle and Uncle Bob in Washington D.C. during the summers growing up. The poem below is courtesy of my crazy Uncle Bob and a long car ride one night:


I come before you to stand behind you
to tell you something I know nothing about.
On next Thursday, which is Good Friday,
There is a Mother’s meeting for men only.
Admission is free, pay at the door.
Pull up a chair and sit on the floor.
There will be dancing for the crippled,
music for the deaf, and
movies for the blind.
In one of the movies a blind man saw,
One day in the middle of the night,
two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back, they faced each other,
pulled out their guns and shot each other.
If you do not believe this lie is true,
ask the blind man who saw it too.

16 Jul

The Worn-in Look

We have gone through most of the typical “puppy issues” with Madison. The one we haven’t had an issue with is chewing up things. She has never touched furniture, electrical cords, or things just laying around – until lately. We keep a bucket of toys for Madison and for some reason the bucket ended up on a shelf. I guess she used that more than we realized.

Wade woke up the other morning to Madison chewing his hat, which he’d only had for a week. Yesterday I came home from work to find Wade’s Doc Martin’s chewed (mostly the insole). I think we all see a trend here – it is Wade’s stuff that she chews. Know what that means? Yes, he leaves his stuff all over the house. Maybe Madison can train him better than I ever could!

13 Jul

Uber Happiness

I came home from work last night to a very excited greeting. Normally that is just Madison jumping and whining and begging attention, but last night Wade was just about as excited. He finally finished his rough, rough draft of his thesis. He was happier than Christmas and Birthday combined. I swear he was almost jumping up and down and squealing like a girl (well, not really).

His dad recently mailed us some money to use for a celebrating-finishing-thesis. Although the money disappeared into Wade’s wallet and is long gone, we went out to celebrate. Wade wanted ribs so we drove to Corky’s, the only one in Georgia. (Wade is extremely picky and snobbish when it comes to BBQ. He feels he is an authority, coming from Memphis and all.) But wouldn’t you know, Corky’s closes at 9 and it was 9:12. Wade had to settle for O’Charley’s (another of his favorite’s) instead.

11 Jul

Puppy Smurf

It was a nice relaxing weekend at the Burch house. Wade spent most of the weekend working on his thesis and I spent most of it doing nothing! We rearranged a lot of furniture (love our living room), spent Saturday at the pool, and then watched a bunch of movies. Oh yeah, and we dyed Madison blue.

Dyeing Madison had been in our jar of activities and was recently chosen. Wade bought some dye – essentially colored hairspray. We put Madison in the tub and turned her blue. Then we topped that off with a glitter layer. She was a pretty good sport, i.e. she just sat in the tub and watched us. Due to the torrential downpours we have been having, we had to give her a bath after getting some pictures. Madison has a doggie door and can go outside at will. That would have led to a dog dripping blue everywhere she went

03 Jul

He Brought A Pocketknife To A Gunfight

My dad is a race car driver – at least on the weekends. Since he was 16 years old, he has raced in one form or another. He is now racing NHRA and IHRA Pro Modified. His car is a replica Viper and he races a nitrous oxide system (NOS). Last year he came in 8th place in the points (yeah!). More about his racing here. I don’t get to see him race very often, but it is always fun. The last time Wade and I saw him it was in the fall in North Carolina – and it was very cold. This time, we saw him in Huntsville, Al and it was hot!

One of our friends from GaTech, Daniel Chandler, lives in Madison, Alabama so we begged a place to stay and invited him to the races with us. Saturday is three rounds of qualifying and Sunday is a single elimination bracket. The sweltering heat plays havoc with the cars and with the track – but that works in my dad’s (and the other NOS cars) favor. There were not many cars in his class this weekend so everyone made it to the elimination rounds, but their order was determined by the qualifying times. My dad was near the bottom, but his crew finally realized what was wrong and spent the evening switching out the clutch and the transmission.

Sunday morning Daniel cooked us breakfast and then it was back to the track. Dad won his first round – both cars had some trouble, but Dad made it to the end of the track first. The guys on his crew now knew exactly what was wrong this time- too much weight on the clutch. His next race was against the No. 1 guy – Shannon Jenkins (the only other NOS car). Dad had an ETA of 4.17, but Shannon had a 4.13 (this is on a 1/8 mile track). Oh well, you win some and you lose some – but we had a blast.

Drag races are interesting places – kind of like redneck central. The announcer uses phrases like “He brought a pocketknife to a gunfight” to describe a car that isn’t as fast as it’s opponent. The people all around us in the stands were exactly what the stereotype would imply. We mostly hung out in the pit area with everyone else that came to see my dad race – Laura’s family and some friends. We had awesome snacks and goodies (Starne’s BBQ) and electric fans – sadly the AC was out in the trailer. They do put on an awesome firework show on Saturday night – I can’t wait to see what Atlanta does this year for the 4th.

02 Jul

Cookie Monster

The next activity Wade and I chose was to make sugar cookies. This required a trip to the grocery for icing and sprinkles and a trip out for cookie cutters. Cookie cutters are surprisingly hard to find – we ended up with a bone, frog, heart, fish, and flower. Jamie was looking for something to do so she joined us for dinner and decorating.

Sugar cookie dough is a little different from normal cookie dough, but tastes just as yummy! You have to get the dough very cold and work with it before it softens. We had it in the fridge for 2 hours, but to get it cold enough, we had to put it in the freezer for another hour. The best idea would have been to make it the night before, but that would have required too much forethought (We went to see Grease at the Screen on the Green in Piedmont Park the night before and got in late). Then you use lots of flour and roll out the cookies for the cookie cutters.

The last time I decorated sugar cookies, it was at Wade’s parents’ house. His mom made her own icing, which I thought was awesome. We decided to make some of our own and in retrospect, that’s what I’ll always do. I’m not a big icing fan and the store bought stuff is too thick and rich.

After all the decorating was finished, Wade’s cookies looked the best – we’ll say it is because he is a design major. We took the cookies to Huntsville and I told everyone my little cousins decorated them. I will admit they tasted great though!