29 Jan, 2008
2008 Take one...roll tape...and action!
Welcome to 2008, my name is Stephen and I write the blog
that you're reading. If you look to your left you'll probably see a door, and
if you look to your right, you'll probably see a window. If not, you will need
to adjust your viewing position accordingly in order for the following message
to appear correctly.
I was going to share with you my mechanic’s story of changing my spark plugs, but I only got halfway started with that blog and I never posted it. Long and short of it is that it took a total of about 8 hours and $300 to get my spark plugs changed and it ended up with me buying a nice TV for Shanda’s Christmas present. (My grammar checker tells me that sentence should end with a question mark. Why?) More on that in the future. (Yes, I know that is a sentence fragment and I should consider revising it.)
Things at work are beginning to calm down a bit. We’re pretty much wrapped up on a project
that we didn’t want to have anything to do with in the first place. Ya gotta love those upper management decisions. 
I was able to provide tech support to my mother over the
phone. She’s gained a lot of computer
literacy in the past few years. It took
us awhile to show her the power button, but she’s surfing HGTV.com on her own
now, without the training wheels even. I
basically walked her through recreating all of her e-mail server settings. Some people find it hard to get answers when
calling tech support. I mean, stuff like
“my computer’s slow” yeah, that’s hard to remedy. However, if someone says you tried entering
your password too many times and you need to try again in an hour, it’s likely
their shift is up in less than an hour.
Well it seems as if I’ve reached the end of a printed page, so hopefully I’ll catch up with you again before next year. See y’all!
06 Dec, 2007
A Christmas Survey...
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I prefer the bags, but I do use wrapping paper if time allows.
2. Real or artificial tree? THE Christmas tree must be real. The secondary trees may be artificial.
3. When do you put up the tree? No earlier than Thanksgiving, and I mean it. Unless she sweet talks me into it, but definitely no earlier than Shanda's birthday.
4. When do you take the tree down? Before the city stops picking them up for free.
5. Do you like eggnog? The Non-Alcoholic kind, of course...but in moderation, still.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Too many to choose from. I think our first computer came around Christmas time...
7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, or at least had one. I think Shanda may have put it in the yard sale.
8. Hardest person to buy for? ME! Sorry everyone!
9. Easiest person to buy for? No one's easy to buy for...but Shanda's pretty good about dropping hints whether she knows it or not. ;)
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I got some ladies roll-on deodorant at school one time.
11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail, but that's really not my department.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? You must not remember what happened last year...
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? As soon as I get a chance...which is usually in the December-teens.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Probably. Save the planet!
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Dessert.
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Doesn't matter, just as long as there are A LOT OF LIGHTS!!!!
17. Favorite Christmas song? Silent Night, Away in a Manger...most of the ones you'd find in the Hymnal.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Did somebody say road trip? :)
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Dasher 'n' Dancer 'n' Prancer 'n' Vixen 'n' Comet 'n' Cupid
'n' Donner 'n' Blitzen 'n' Bruce 'n' Marvin, and Clyde...well, Clyde was actually a camel, but don't forget Rudolph, even though he dislocated his hip in a twist contest and was all stove up in the hospital...and don't forget Leroy the redneck reindeer...
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? An angel...but whatever works!
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? Christmas Morning.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? See: The Twelve Pains of Christmas by Bob Rivers
23. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme? Yes, the theme my wife likes. :)
24. What do/did you leave for Santa? Beer and pickled eggs...uh...I meant milk and cookies?
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! (More)
10 Jul, 2007
It's my blog, and I can try if I want to. Try if I want to. Try if I want to.
30 Apr, 2007
Gather 'round, kiddies!
Ya know, there’s probably only one thing worse than having to read my babbling on about random topics. That thing is reading on about me forgetting about which topics I was going to babble on about. About is a preposition, isn’t it? Should that be “about which I was going to babble” or leave it as it is? The underlying problem here is that prepositions are words you don’t want to end a sentence with.
Friday evening, Shanda and I had the opportunity of serving the Lord for “Parent’s Date Night” at our church. Parents of all shapes and sizes would drop their children off while they got to enjoy a movie without a 100% animated cast, or a quiet dinner without having the only screaming child in the restaurant. Instead, the children would stay screaming with us at the church. I’m kidding…well, partly. After the first 15 minutes or so when they realized that mommy wasn’t going to be back for awhile and there were lots of neat toys and three strange adults to play with, it wasn’t so bad. We watched about the first 15 minutes of the Veggie Tales sing-along because that’s how long a toddler’s attention span is. There was an abundance of pizza which was torn into small manageable kiddie-sized chunks. Surprisingly, very little of the pizza actually made it onto the floor.
I was telling Shanda how interesting it was for me to see the children who were all at the same ages and how some of them couldn’t talk, some of them wouldn’t talk, and some of them could say everything except “I just pooped my diaper and I need a new one.” After some time with these kids, I learned to decipher some of what they were talking about. I hadn’t had to translate such incoherent babble into English for my own use since I left work earlier that day.
Much of my evening was spent keeping an eye on the children, making sure they shared their toys and generally didn’t do anything to cause Amber extra paperwork. There was lots of bending to move 1:4 scale chairs away from the television, as well as moving their human counterparts a safe distance from the screen. There was the smell of dirty diapers which I was fortunate enough to avoid by asking where the pressure washer was…
One by one, our children started floating away. Sometimes the parents would come and the kids’ faces would light up. Other parents came and the parents’ faces would light up. As the numbers dwindled, our faces were lighting up.
I know the evening left me with an experience. It wasn’t so bad, and I don’t think anything happened that left me or the children with any permanent physical or emotional scarring.
(More)11 Apr, 2007
What I meant to say was...
So apparently I left out a few important things yesterday. You may recall me making mention earlier of the fact that Mr. Bob died and the Starlite is closed until further notice. I think just the fact that the drive-in is closed makes me want to go even more! Fortunately for us, there is a drive-in theater in Henderson. Yeah, that's a little bit of a drive from our house, but it's right up 85 so it's not that terrible. It was our first experience with the Raleigh Road Outdoor Theatre, and I must say that it was a pretty good one. The owners are drive-in buffs and they happened upon the deal on eBay. The place is really nice. They've really worked on the concession stand and bathrooms. It's all very clean and bright. The concessions are reasonably priced (though not quite as reasonable as they were at the Starlite). Still, you can't beat the admission price of five bucks a head. That also buys you two movies, not one! The only real complaint I had about the place was when they changed the aspect ratio between movies, they lost the focus. A blurry movie is difficult for me to watch. :-P
Also, uh...I've started a FaceBook page. It automatically imports TheBig Blog so I don't have to! Just in case you're reading this on FaceBook, you might want to check out http://Blog.TheBigWhiteWolf.com and http://www.myspace.com/thebigwhitewolf.
I loaded my MySpace page down with pictures yesterday. I do realize that it's probably about time to take down all the March/Irish/St. Patrick's Day related items and throw something different on the page. I'll get around to it sooner or later, I promise! :-)
Oh, and another thing I've added to
TheBig Blog is an advertisement for the Harvest Crusades coming to
the RBC Center June 22-24th. I'm starting to see the bumper stickers
pop up around the area, so click on the ad below and and find out
what's going on and why you shouldn't miss it!
Bye!
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10 Apr, 2007
Tuesday's Typically Tangled Typings
Previously on TheBig Blog, I was experiencing a code black
at the hospital in which I work. There
wasn't a bomb in anyone's chest or anything exciting like that, just the lack
of a functioning voicemail system. It
didn't come back up before I left, but fortunately for our customers, we carry
pagers as well, and I was soon gotten ahold of as needed. The End.
(of that story)
Uhm...since last time, we had our monthly prayer meeting at
church. That's always good times. We had several hispanic people join the
church. It's a blessing to hear them say
"Profeso a Jesús
We went out to celebrate mama's birthday at the Old Country
Club Steakhouse. I've come to the
realization that if the place wasn't in the old Country Club building, that it
probably wouldn't have lasted this long.
Don't get me wrong, I like the place.
The folks are extra friendly. The
salad bar is probably one of the more diverse salad bars I've ever
experienced. The food is good, though my
wife has spoiled me into believing that the steaks I grill are in all ways
superior to any restaurant steak. Aside
from new restrooms, the building hasn't had any major renovation for as long as
I can remember. My wife wasn't expecting
great things judging by the appearance of the building. The thing about it is, the place has great
potential! There is a beautiful view of
(I went on way too long about that, but hey, it's what I
do.
Then there was the Easter drama that my neice starred
in. She was baby Jesus. Yes, the role of Jesus was played by a
girl. There was also dancing in this
drama. Had they used real wine for the
communion, I'm pretty sure the church would have been kicked out of the
Southern Baptist Convention.
Oh...earlier in that day, we started our butterfly
garden. We planted our gladioli (or is
that gladiouluses?), some verbena, a butterfly bush, lantana, and some
pinks. Some of these are the common
names, others may be totally invented by my in-laws.
Easter...we did our usual egg decorating and hunting at my
in-laws. A bunch of grown folks
wandering about the yard with easter baskets on an Easter egg hunt. I giggle at myself sometimes, but I got the
most eggs! HAH!
30 Jan, 2007
"Who kid awn pa hah nix"
I just realized something...I may actually like to
read. If I really didn’t like to read, I
probably wouldn’t enjoy writing so much.
If I didn’t enjoy writing, I would not be here in front of you.
Now, I need to get me a library card. :-)
(More)05 Jan, 2007
Crappy New Year! :-P
So with all of the well wishing of a happy and prosperous new year, I must say it’s not working all that terribly well. Yeah, it could be much worse, I realize, but it seems to be raining poop on the White household. (And that doesn’t have anything to do with the puppy for once...)
08 Dec, 2006
There goes the Network Neighborhood!
So I'm sitting at my computer, minding my own dang business when I go to upload a new ringtone on my cell phone. I plug the thing in and the next thing I know, my computer doesn't want to respond to me. Something smelled burnt. It turns out that I let the smoke out of my computer. Now I'll spend the next few days trying to get Dell to send me the parts to fix it. This should be fun.
05 Dec, 2006
Oh, Christmas Tree! Oh, Christmas Tree!
26 Oct, 2006
2006 North Carolina State Fair
So, last Saturday we went to the North Carolina State Fair. By we, I mean, myself, my wife Shanda, her sister Tonnye, her husband Shane, and 145,467 other people. It was waaay overcrowded, but hey, we were there. We're not really ride riders like we have been in the past. We took in a lot of the exhibits, instead. Firstly, we went in the Village of Yesteryear. Then we took in the Gardens...or maybe I have that backwards. Anyways, then I was told I had to go visit Al's Fries. Al's Fries were pretty good, though I think they would have been better had they not been so busy. After a little bite to eat, we went and looked at the prize winning fruits, vegetables, cows, pigs, horses, and goats. Just in case you missed it, here's a picture of a goat in a sweater.
10 Aug, 2006
Random Thought for 10 August 2006
Do you ever remember back in the day when you were sitting there watching the Preview channel (Pre-TV Guide Channel...) and you see "Benny Hill" scroll across the screen? You got so excited and you changed the channel only to find some guy preaching at you? Then, at that exact moment, you realize that Benny HINN and Benny HILL are totally two different people and would probably never be on the same tv channel in the first place. (More)
21 Jul, 2006
The Movie Checklist - I've seen 50
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18 Jul, 2006
200 minus 88 questions (updated 7/31/06)
200:
My name is: Stephen...I have a feeling this is going to be a long
survey...
13 Jul, 2006
My Names
1)
YOUR ROCK STAR NAME:
(first
pet and current street )
Bob
Birds Nest (Bobby Birds Nest sounds
better though…)
2)
YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME:
(grandfather/grandmother
on your dad's side, your favorite candy)
Charlie “Dark Chocolate”
Hershey-Bar (I hope no one thinks I’m
related to Roseanne!)
3)
YOUR "FLY GIRL/GUY" NAME:
(first
initial of first name, first four letters of your middle name)
S-Chri (I think there’s supposed to be an accent
over the I)
4)
YOUR DETECTIVE NAME:
(favorite
color, favourite animal)
Green
Giraffe
5)
YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME:
(middle
name, city where you were born)
Christopher
Durham (I like the ring to that one!)
6)
YOUR STAR WARS NAME:
(the
first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2
letters of mom's maiden name and first 3 letters of the town you grew up in.)
Whist Me-Hur (Spaces and punctuation added for my
preferred emphasis)
7)
Terrorist Name:
(middle
name spelled backwards, your mom’s mom's maiden name spelled backwards)
Rehpotsirhc Nacnud
8)
SUPERHERO NAME:
("The",
your favorite color, favorite drink)
The
Green Vault
13 Jun, 2006
Now, that's what I call music!
I love old music, especially the novelty tunes. I grew up collecting Ray Stevens CDs like they were trading cards, and I still have five or six of them. I just find my self attracted to lyrics like “you can’t roller skate through a buffalo herd,” “may the bird of paradise fly up your nose,” and “dang me, dang me, oughtta take a rope and hang me.”
That’s one of the reasons I’m attracted to the weekend
programs on AM 570 WDNZ and AM 680 WPTF.
I especially like Pat Patterson’s program because the bits he performs
on the show just make it seem like something you would have heard back when AM
was your only option.
You might be asking yourself why I’m listening to AM radio, and not my MP3 player, or my satellite radio. The short answer is that I have neither. The long answer is, I have neither and I want neither. I like my AM radio programs just fine.
(More)02 Jun, 2006
How good are you at certain things?
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23 Dec, 2005
Christmas Presents
I really want to tell you what I'm getting for my wife...my inlaws...my family...but I can't! Darn these intarwebs and their popularity!!!
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