My car hood is in the shape of an upside down "V"

But it's still running like a champ.

A shorter bank story

I have a credit card through my bank, and I like to go in pretty regularly and pay it via my checking account. I find that I don't have to really know much besides my name and I can get everything taken care of ... so I don't go in prepared at all.

Twice now I've gone to a certain Compass Bank location and done this, and have worked with Azam both times. He's a nice guy .. if not a little hard to understand. We do the same little dance every time: I tell him I want to pay my credit card bill. He pulls up my info with my SS#. I ask him how much I owe on my credit card. He instead tells me the amount of money I have in my bank account. I have a mini-stroke.

Good times.

The adventures of Karl and his ATM

I hate the ATM at my bank. A couple weeks ago I went down there to do an after hours deposit, and the machine asked, "Do you want an envelope?" Why yes I do, thanks for asking. Door opens, and ... nothing. How am I supposed to deposit my checks?

Finally we go to Charlie's bank (I'm Compass Bank, he's Bank of America) and he grabs a handful of about 50 envelopes and brings them back. I grab one, he puts the rest in my glove compartment, and I deposit m check. And it works fine.

Fast forward to yesterday. Another day to send in checks. Same song, second verse. "Do you want an envelope?" I'll bite. No envelope. Open the glove compartment ... crap. We're in Charlie's car instead today! I get a little bit angry and a lot frustrated.

Trip to Charlie's bank: he deposits his check, I get another envelope from the friendly envelope people at BoA. We drive back over to Compass while I mark out of "of America" and write "Compass" over "Bank". I mark out the BoA logo and meticulously draw the Compass Bank logo below it. And then on the rest of the envelope, I write, "For the love of all that is holy and just, please either fill your ATM machine w/ envelopes, or fix it." And in large letters filling the rest of the blank space, I write, "FOR MY SANITY!!"

Fast forward: next morning, 7:30am. Marshall knocks on my bedroom door ... "Compass Bank on the phone for you." "Hello?"

"Hi, I just wanted to let you know that we're SO sorry about the inconvenience you are having with our ATM machine and the piece that is broken for the envelope dispenser is being replaced very soon." I could NOT stop laughing at this point. "This is the best call I've gotten all year," I tell her. "Well, you said your sanity was on the line so we wanted to give you a call." She pauses for a moment and says, "All of us here at the bank this morning got a good laugh about this. Especially the part about the 'love of all that is holy and just'."

I could have been mad that she called at 7:30am for this, but it was just too priceless.

Housing at the feast

I've found myself a nice little romantic getaway villa in the heart of New Braunfels. Looks pretty amazing. The lady is calling me back in an hour or so to talk over the nitty gritty.

I'm taking Charlie. Long walks on the back terrace, maybe some canoeing in our personal waterway. Oooh.

Totally worth it.

So we arrive at the theater where the show is happening, and I start looking through the credits of the people that are in the show. And they're a bunch of FSU college students. The lead is a sophomore from there in fact. I'm getting a little worried about how much time and money I've put into this trip at this point.

Not even a factor. This was probably more energy packed than the professional tour that came out a decade ago. These actors were over the top on everything they did. Best show ever. And the theater was so small. It was like the show was being put on for you personally .. they were so close to where you were sitting. I got to walk around and shake hands and talk to all the actors afterwards. Awesome folks. Obviously just a bunch of "amateurs" that loved what they did. One of the leads was a high school teacher and he had a bunch of his students show up and they were just giggling and carrying on about what he was doing on stage. He looked a little embarassed.

Then we headed home. While on I-10 coming back (about 20 minutes down the road) we saw a car cut in front of a semi and seemingly clip the front end, because he then proceeded to fly off the road, through the ditch, through a fence, and into the trees about 30 yards away. We got off the road and ran over to help out. They told me to call 911 while the others ran down in the ditch to get the people out of the car. Ended up just being one guy in the car, and by the time I got down there he was standing on the side of the road. One of the guys that got him out was yelling, "What were you thinking? Cutting off that semi ... you could have been killed!" The kid was just standing there .. not saying a word, not even really looking all that alive. He was obviously pretty messed up ... almost a post-trauma thing. He was a little cut up and bruised but otherwise he was fine. We took off after that.

Then we changed into swimgear and took the first road south to the beach. We stopped in Panama City about 8:00 and went swimming. Then we got back in the car, drove down to Destin, got out and went swimming about 10pm. Finally we took off for good and got back to Lafayette at abot 4:30am and then back to Big Sandy about 9:00am. I got my rental car back to DFW airport about 11:30am. And then I hung out with Lacey and Kristin (who picked me up after that) for the rest of the afternoon until about 4:30. At which point I went to bed and didn't see anything til 7am this morning. I needed it.

BEST. SHOW. EVER.

A few things (state of the cell phone included)

So, the new month has arrived thankfully. I can stop screening my calls and just answer them all ... enjoyable or not. I have a new plan where I get 100 less anytime minutes but I get to add 10 numbers to my plan that I can call and be called from for free anytime and all the time. If you have to ask if you're on the list, then you probably aren't.

I've bought the tickets as of about 10 minutes ago for "The Scarlet Pimpernel". There's no stopping me now, besides maybe a severe case of narcolepsy. I'm getting way excited. I can't get the music out of my head. The shower is now a full time Scarlet Pimpernel sing along.

I've always thought that I was one of the more patient people I know and that I can put up with pretty much anything with a cheesy grin on my face. Sometimes I think God is letting me know that this pseudo-pride about my patience level just isn't cutting it. I don't think I want to talk about being patient anymore.

I went out and drowned myself in a large guacamole bowl last night at On the Border with Charlie. The place was retardedly packed and all the servers had these little machines on a strap that they could take your orders on and swipe your credit card and print out a bill. Pretty amazing. If not way too bulky -- Charlie got whapped a few times by a wild swinging strap pack. We joked about it with our waitress and then the next thing we know we're getting OtB gift cards. Pretty sweet.

I'm driving back to Big Sandy for the weekend and I'm trying to figure out the most optimal way of getting there AND stuffing my gullet sufficiently for the fast. I guess I can live either way. I sort of want to make sure I don't miss out on getting well hydrated (Marshall loves being well hydrated) before it begins. I'll be fiiiiiiine.

Scarlet Pimpernel. Woo.

I propose a challenge for everyone. Find a pregnant lady and walk up and pat her belly and say "Aww, when are you due?" For extra points, do it to someone that's not pregnant. That you don't know.

Read your bibles.

State of the cell phone

I'm over my limit on minutes, but I have like, 400 texts left.

I'm just about wearing out my keypad.