Saturday...

Spent some time cleaning house and the lawn today.  Put the new bar on my chainsaw and it works great!  No more cutting in a circle.  If you've even had a worn chainsaw bar you know what I mean.  If not skip that part. 
Went shopping and returning stuff in Cedar Falls and Waterloo.  I got to go to Best Buy and finally get Annie her Christmas present.  I had ordered this for her four times online and each time I got a notice back that they were out if stock.  I had been to Best Buy a week ago and they told me they always sell out of those around Christmas.  I'm feeling like I finally picked a good present for Annie.  Got it home, installed it and... she actually loved it and it works great.  I new that'd surprise you.  Something was easy for once.  I'm not holding my breath though.

On another note, Macs are supposed to be superior to pcs in every way, right?   Thus may be the case for one that actually works, but is quite untrue of the emac that isdwelling in my office.  I think I am on my seventh attempt to install the operating system.  The legendary simplicity of Macintosh is fading in my mind.  At least my pc laptop will start up.  Not much more than that as the screen won't display anything.  I guess that's what you get when you have a pile of tiny screws left after you take it apart and put it back together, 'back together,' being used loosely.  Needless to say that computer is at the Computer Doctor.  No, literally, the guy's business is called Parkersburg Computer Doctor.  Hopefully he charges less than a medical doctor.
While we are discussing computers, my wife has been wooed by the dim glow of the Ipad 2.  Our laptop, which I destroyed while "fixing it" has been out of commission for about a week.  Annie, who initially hated the Ipad because of its ability to turn our children into psychotic monsters, has taken quite a liking to that little gadget.  She is a recent subscriber to Pinterest and loves browsing crafting ideas on the Ipad.  I think she's becoming a Mac believer.  I would have to say that I adore the ipad and always have since little Josie got it in the mail from Fedex.   We'll leave that story for another day.  I have this app that allows me to draw pictures.  I will post one here eventually.  It is really quite amazing what you can do.  I also got Garage Band which could consume a considerable amount of my time if I let it.

Wow.  That was a tangent.  We were going to go to the Waterloo Walmart after Best Buy.  I won't let Annie go there by herself, but since we were shopping together today I thought it'd be fine.  Do not mistake me for someone who is racist or holier than though.  I have shopped at that Walmart many times.  Annie used to live rigt next to Covenant and we would go there at midnight frequently.  There was never a lack of creepy people there.  And it was no particular race or ethnicity.  The creepiness did not discriminate.  One time a guy there, about 6'6" and 300 pounds stopped me.  He said, "where do you work," and acted really friendly.  If you know me at all you know that I could carry on a conversation with anyone.  So I told him I worked at Allen Hospital.  Should have seen this coming...  He says, "I do too!  In laundry... my car is dead in the parking lot could you give me a ride?"  Now what would you do?  Remember I am not your average person.  I am overly friendly and a terrible judge of character.  So I left my pretty girlfriend or wife, can't remember if we were married yet, at scary Walmart while I went to drive this man somewhere to help get his car fixed.  We proceeded to drive around every bad neighborhood of Waterloo.  At one point he asks if he can use my phone...  now I know you're thinking that I must be pretty smart...I'm a college graduate...(I was trying to think of other examples of my intelligence and I'm not coming up with anything).  Okay maybe what I did won't shock you then.  Yes, I gave the man my phone.  Not only am I driving him down every dark, dilapidated street in town he now has my phone and about 200 pounds on me.  He directs me to a house where he is going to get something to help with his car problem.  In retrospect I'm pretty sure he was selling or buying illegal drugs of some kins, but I can't prove that.  So he gets back in the car and we head to what I think is back to Walmart.  However, he keeps wanting me to take him different places.  Finally, I think he can tell I'm getting sick of hauling him around.  He tells me to pull over right next to downtown East Waterloo.   I did get my phone back by the way.  He gets out of the car and asks me if I have any money for him to buy cigarettes.  At this point I think I would have paid him anything to get him out of my life for good.  Fortunately I only had four dollars.  He assured me that he would pay me back at work the next week.  He walked away and I headed back to Walmart.  I never got my four bucks back.

All of that to illustrate to you the type of characters that frequent the Waterloo Walmart.  So tonight we have just left Best Buy and I am about to take my wife and four young children to this same Walmart that I just described above.  To show you that I am not just being bigotist we were headed to the parking lot of the store to do our shopping there.  The only thing that stopped us was the police car that was parked right I front of the door with its cherries flashing.  Cedar Falls Walmart had the kindest gal working at their Tire Lube Speeds tonight.  Out van was done in no time.  No strange people approached me for rides.  I didn't even mention the time my friends Kyle and Chris were at Waterloo Walmart and someone came in with a gun.  I think we made the right choice of Walmarts today. 

We got all the necessities and headed home by way of Wendy's for some "you did good at Walmart" frosties for the kids and a "you survived a trip to Walmart without giving a serial killer a ride" root beer float for me.  When we got home I got to install Annie's present, an undercabinet cd/radio thing for the kitchen.  I know, kind of a letdown huh?  Who new those were such a popular holiday gift.  I literally spent hours online shopping for this particular one.  I even started early.  Annie loves it.  We got to rock out in the kitchen during bedtime snack.  Got to bed fairly early but here I am telling you about my life at 1am.  Daphne was up with us for quite a while, now she's back in bed.  She's been a little feverish.  Enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading if you made it this far.   Oh and we git two new fish from Uncle Thad and Aunt Stephanie.  Betta and Ralph.