We survived my parents' 50th anniversary party Saturday. Barely. Friday, I decided there was just too much to do, so I took a half-day off work and Debbie, our Pastor's wife, and myself got the bulk of things set up Friday. Saturday, I was at the church before 8am directing traffic from the Iceman bike race. What was nice was that because I bothered to talk to the parking lot attendants at the middle and high schools, as soon as their lots were full, they came and parked cars in our lot so I could go inside and take care of things for the party. That was a huge relief for me, because the last heats of the race left about a half hour before the party started. The parking thing wasn't a problem at all; there was plenty of space left for all the people we had show up.

The party itself was just a blur. Lots of running around, trying to talk to people that we hadn't seen in years in some cases, keeping food flowing and all that. I got to play MC, which I hate doing, but it wasn't like anyone else in my family was going to grab a mic and start talking in front of 100 or so people. The music went well; one of the ladies from the church sang a song my mom likes, I sang two songs in a trio with two other guys from the church that I've sang with before, and I was able to get another guy that used to live in the Kalkaska area to come up. He was very close to my parents while he lived here. I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to make until he actually showed up, so I hadn't said anything to my parents and left it as a surprise. In all, I think it went OK, although we will all be eating left-overs until Christmas.

Sunday was recovery day. I'm still battling something; I had symptoms that usually signal the start of a sinus infection when I got up. I was on praise team, of course. I never sing unless I have some upper respiratory ailment or another. But I felt better during church, then slid downhill all afternoon. I should have stayed home rather than go back for evening service as I slept through the entire service. We got home, ate something, then watched part of a movie, then went to bed.

Monday started bad; my alarm either didn't go off (unlikely) or I shut it off in my sleep (far more likely). In any case, I was an hour late for work. The good part was I got a nice, friendly kiss from the dog in the truck next to mine when I stopped for my morning caffeine fix at the Rapid City BP. I usually don't mess with dogs in other vehicles other than to talk to them; dogs seem to get very territorial about their owners vehicles. Probably reflects the attitudes of their owners. In any case, this dog nearly climbed out of the truck, so I gave him a little scrit and got a good morning kiss in return. I was walking away before I noticed the owner was sitting in the truck laughing his head off... Anyway, as good as that was, it didn't help the day much. I left work early because I wasn't feeling well at all. I got home in time to remember I had an appointment to get the fuel filter changed on my truck. So back out in the cold for a couple more hours. But at least that is one job taken care of for winter. I'm now home typing this and about to start on homework.

If you have seen a chart that claims to show that all the states that voted for Bush have lower average IQ's than those that voted for Kerry, keep a couple things in mind: first, it is a hoax and there are dozens of sites that have already debunked it; second, Democrats claim that IQ doesn't measure anything significant and is racist, sexist, and anyone that puts any stock in IQ scores probably stomps baby kittens; third, this is just the sort of immature, elementary-school-level insult that cost the Democrats the election in the first place. In a way, I hope they keep this up for another four years. If they really focus, the next presidential election will be a Republican landslide.

Enough 2004 American politics already; I need to read about first-century, middle-east politics. Not much has changed in 2000 years...