It's not easy being green

As I type this, I know exactly how Kermit the Frog felt. My arms and legs are tinted the astro turf green of patio furniture, I smell strongly of gasoline and vaguely of tropical passionfruit bodywash, and I think I'm going to have a blister on my pointer finger. HELP!

How did I get myself into this mess?

A couple in our church sent out a church-wide email stating that they were giving away a set of 'slightly rusted' patio furniture and a 'working' toaster. As Sam and I have a patio that we've never really used because we didn't want to invest in furniture for it (due to our relatively short stay here and the fact that we'd have to move it back to Mississippi with us), I saw this as a perfect opportunity! We can just use the furniture during our time here and then have the option to give it away before we move. Brilliant.

I called the couple to tell them Sam would be by to pick up the set of furniture on his way home from class one day. (On a side note...... although I couldn't tell it from their email, this couple is from Holland; and they have a very thick Dutch accent. Think Goldmember in Austin Powers - "my fazsher!" Very humorous, I think.) I was planning to make a quick job of spray painting the furniture to hide the rusty spots, but I'd never really done anything like that before.

So I called Mrs. Bonnie (Sam's mom) who can pretty much do anything (except wear dangly earrings, of course) to get directions for spiffing up our furniture. She told me get some Rust-oleum paint and give it a once-over, rust and all. OR, and I quote, "If you want to do it the easy way, just get Sam to get a wire brush and scrape off all the rust and then paint it." Well, that would be easy! But as Sam is out of town in San Diego this week, I decided to pursue the more difficult way of painting it myself.

I went to Wal-Mart, per her instruction, and purchased Rust-oleum paint in the shade of green closest to what the furniture already was. Then, I put on some old clothes and flip flops and situated the pieces of furniture in our back yard. Ready, set, go!

To skip the boring part, the furniture is painted and looks pretty nice. I may need one more can of paint to do some touch-ups, though. Anyway..... after I finished and came inside, I realized I had paint on my hands. Hmmm, dish soap isn't working. I called Sam, who told me to use the gasoline he has for the lawnmower. That got the paint on the palms of my hands to come off, but (maybe I was doing it wrong) it didn't make much of a difference anywhere else. I figured that the paint would wear off eventually, and it's only on my hands.... I should just take a shower.

Imagine my surprise when I look down to see a flip flop stenciled in green paint on my feet. Next, I realize that I'm a sickly green all the way up to my elbows and mid-thighs! Now hopeless, I finish my washing. Even if I wanted to take a petrol-shower, we don't have that much gasoline left; so I think I'm stuck. And that's the story so far. I'll post a picture of our new furniture (and of me if I'm still green) when Sam gets back.

DMB, John Mayer, Aaron Lewis, Halo 3, Starkville, Floatin', Roomba, etc.

The mood to post to this blog comes along quite infrequently. I've got a lot to catch up on.

Katherine and I have gone to a couple of concerts lately (both free!). VT held a concert to start the year, and it was widely publicized. Phil Vassar opened up, followed the the rapper, Nas. Both of them were horrible. I like country, but Phil just doesn't cut it. Nas; what can I say, pathetic. Then came John Mayer. That guy can play a stinkin' guitar like it was his job (which it is). I was impressed to say the least, plus he's dating Jessica Simpson. Then came, get ready Heather, Dave Matthews. We stayed for a few songs of his, then left. He's ok, but I can only take 15 minutes of one song so many times.

The other concert was a couple of weeks ago. I called in to the VT radio station while doing lab work at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Supposedly, I was the second caller, but I have a hard time believing there was somebody listening to VT radio on a Saturday morning. Nevertheless, I won 2 tickets to hear an acoustic concert with Aaron Lewis, the lead singer of Staind, over in Roanoke that same night. He's pretty dark with his lyrics, as Katherine mentioned, but he's got some really good songs and a great voice. I put a video down below if you want to see.

Halo 3, the greatest game in the history of the world, came out a week ago. I beat the game yesterday. The multiplayer games are great, and I've gotten to play with my cousin Kurt (lives in Tupelo) several times. He's a bit better than me, but I will say I'm still getting back the feel for Halo after playing Battlefield 2 for so long.

This weekend, we're headed to God's country, Mississippi. We're flying out in a 4-seater on Thursday afternoon and should arrive in New Albany at around 4 p.m. I'm excited to get back. It's been about 4 months since I've seen the promised land. We'll head to Starkville Friday night, and partake in some MSU Homecoming festivities on Saturday. Sunday afternoon, we'll come back. Anyone who hasn't seen us in a while and plans to be in Starkville this weekend, let us know.

Katherine is in Minneapolis for work. Her company sends their employees there after they've worked about 6 months. Katherine flew out of Roanoke Sunday morning. After getting back from the airport, my friend Gaurav and I went to float down the New River on intertubes. We were the only 2 people who were out there all day long. The water wasn't even cold; it was spectacular. They give you an extra tube for your cooler, and you just sit back and let the water take you down. I've been fiddling with some video editing software, and this is what I came up with from the trip. Let me know what you think.

I've been getting some extra spending cash from advertising websites lately, and I've been trying to think of something to get for Katherine that we would normally not get ourselves. I found it tonight. It's called a Roomba, and it's an automatic vacuum cleaner. Some of you may have heard of them before; they've been out for several years. They just came out with a new model that claims to have fixed several short-comings from the previous version. Anyways, I'm a sucker for free trials now, and I really think Katherine will enjoy having this. She's not too big on vacuuming, and I would just do it myself, but she claims I don't get the floor clean enough. Who am I to argue? This is definitely going to be a cool gadget, though. I'm excited to see if it works. Supposedly it uses little sensors that go in doorways to know which room it's in. After it's finished cleaning one room, it automatically goes to the next. When it's low on battery, or done cleaning, it uses the doorway sensors to navigate back to a charging dock. It stops suction when going over rug tassles, it changes height when transition from carpet to hard flooring, it even slows down to clean really dirty spots. I'll let you know how it goes.