Most of November 2003 Entries
Saturday, 11-1-2003: No kids today. Me and Cal worked on Elephant & Bird stuff for most of the day. Filmed all the stuff we needed and we kept ending up running out to stores to find stuff we needed.
Sunday, 11-2-2003: Me, Cal and the kids were sitting around the house bored so we decide to go to downtown St. Louis and do absolutely nothing. We stop by a convenience store to load up on soda and chips, then go to downtown St. Louis. We just kind of walk around downtown aimlessly, doing nothing that interesting. We go to the Arch for awhile and into the museum, then onto the riverboat that I was sending people to during my Dash For Cash prank. I still have the pay phones from that prank programmed into my cell phone, so while the kids run around playing, me and Cal amuse ourselves by calling the pay phone and talking to the bums that keep answering. So anyway, it was a pointless day but we had fun. Here’s a few pictures:
Monday, 11-3-2003: Cal left today and headed back to Texas. A couple hours after he left, he called me up and told me that a St. Louis cop pulled him over and spent 20 minutes searching his car. The reason for pulling him over, the cop said, was because he was in the left lane while not passing anyone. The cop demanded to know why he was in St. Louis, who he was seeing, where I lived, what he did for a living, etc. He searched the entire car, the trunk, even under the hood, obviously looking for drugs.
A similar thing happened to me back in ’91 when an Arkansas cop pulled me over. His reason was because he thought I might be smoking pot. That’s it. I read this newspaper column a couple years ago about this lady who was taking a cross-country trip to see some relatives. While on the interstate, a car got in front of her and slowed down, forcing her to pass the guy which meant she got in the passing lane and sped a little. Then a cop pulls her over and behind the cop is the car that made her speed. The cop searches her car and interrogates her, then lets her go. This happens to her 3 more times before she reaches her relatives. One of the cops tells her that her car and it’s condition fits the profile of a drug smuggler – it’s a nice car, the back is filled with suitcases with airline tags on them, etc. I’m guessing that was the same deal with Cal – nice car, back filled with clothes and stuff from his trip here.
It all seems kind of pointless. Why don’t they just legalize drugs? I know that’ll probably never happen in my lifetime. But Cal doesn’t do drugs and I don’t do drugs. But I’m 100% sure I could get any kind of drug I want. Anyone can, really. So doesn’t it seem pointless for them to be illegal when anybody who wants them can get them? If they were to legalize drugs tomorrow, I would continue not to use them. It wouldn’t change a thing for me. The government could make a shitload of money collecting taxes on drugs instead of spending a shitload of money busting people who use drugs. In 100 years, I bet we’re going to look back on the whole war on drugs thing and laugh at ourselves for being so stupid. The government should try an experiment – legalize drugs for just one year and see what happens. Then use that data to decide whether or not legalizing them is a good idea or not.
Wednesday, 11-5-2003: After picking the kids up from school, took them to my parents so that I could work for another hour. Stopped by my brother’s to let him use my laptop, then we went back home and Colleen picked up the kids. Me and Tricia watched Misery on TV.
Friday, 11-7-2003: Around 3:00pm I took the kids to see the movie Brother Bear which wasn’t too bad of a movie, even if I’m not really into cute Disney animal movies. But I’m pretty sure that I probably enjoyed it more than I would have enjoyed Matrix Revolutions. After the movie, I took them to their mom’s and headed for the St. Louis 2600 meeting. I think it’s been about 5 or 6 months now since I’ve been to a meeting. I’m used to their being 20 or so people there, this time there was only 6. I’m told that’s become fairly common lately. We talk a little about moving the meetings to a new location since everyone, including myself, hates the Galleria mall. So that’ll be nice to get it out of there finally. They’re talking about moving it to some cyber cafe that I’ve never heard of. Around 9:30pm I left and went home. Look who was driving in front of me on the way home:
Friday, 11-7-2003: Had to pick up the kids from their Colleen’s at 7:30am so she could go to work. Emily doesn’t have school today for the teachers meetings. So I kept them home for an hour and then they went to my parents to spend the day. At 3:00pm, I picked them up and we went to the Edwardsville theater to see Brother Bear. Tricia, her mom, Jordyn and Keirstan met us there and we all watched it together. Her mom paid our way since it’s my birthday. Took them straight to Colleen’s after that and drove to St. Louis for the 2600 meeting. Stayed there until about 9:30, then went home.
Saturday, 11-8-2003: Got up at 7am for no good reason. Went shopping for some intercoms at Radio Shack, then Lowes. Finally decided on the Lowes version. Bought the book Timeline while I was at the mall, I’ve been searching for that for a few weeks now. Went to the basement desperate to accomplish something. I ended up installing a door to the laundry room. Then I went and picked up the kids from their mom’s, came back and finished the door stuff. The door is to keep the cats from going in there and pooping on the floor. But THEN I decided to go ahead and move the washer and dryer out of that room and into the “new” laundry room that I built earlier this year. So I did that. I still need to move the pipes for the washer but for now I just punched a hole in the wall and ran the hoses through it. Now I have to figure out what I want to do with the old laundry room. I’m thinking it’ll mostly be a studio for my film projects. Maybe a green and blue room. Braden’s mom came over and picked up Payton around 3:30 to come to her house and play. Then I went and picked him up from her house around 5:30. Got some McDonald’s on the way home for Payton, Emily, Keirstan and Jordyn. Tricia left to take Keirstan back to her dad’s and came back home with a kitten that she’s thinking about keeping.
Sunday, 11-9-2003: Yesterday I picked up the book Timeline by Michael Crichton and I’ve been reading it all day while ignoring my kids. It’s a good book and I can’t wait for the movie to come out. Also today I worked on my hidden bookshelf door so that it’s a little more hidden.
You might notice that my journal suddenly has a lot of archiveishness up there on the top of the page. That’s because I stuck links to my travels, early travels and then made archive pages for all the years that I detailed our local 2600 meetings and put those into the archives. This will fool people into thinking that I’ve been keeping an online journal for years now! I used to maintain a website for the St. Louis 2600 meetings but I took that down when Spuds came back into the scene. So now you can read it all again!
Monday, 11-10-2003: Me and Tricia went to see Elf. Man, that sucked. I can’t believe the imdb community gave that movie a 7.5. I usually trust imdb ratings too. I hate Bob Newhart and he was in this movie a lot. He’s the most boring “comedian” ever. Maybe his stuff was funny in the 60’s but it’s not funny today. Not being able to speak complete sentences just isn’t funny to me. I guess I just don’t get it. But even if Bob wasn’t in this movie, it still would have sucked. Most of the scenes with Will Ferrell doing silly things were hilarious but they didn’t make up for the overall suckiness of the rest of the movie.
Tuesday, 11-11-2003: Yahoo chat log from 15 minutes ago…
Kristine: omg! that picture of you! hehehe
brad_the_carter: yep, and that’s not even the worst one i have
Kristine: how old were you in that picture?
brad_the_carter: I’m not sure. It was either in the early 80’s or late 70’s
brad_the_carter: It’s one of my yearbook pictures.
Kristine: that just kills me! hehe
brad_the_carter: I swear, I could show you even dorkier pictures of me that I’m too embarassed to put on the forums.
Kristine: haha. it’s not that it’s dorky…it’s just really weird to see a young version of you!
Here you go, Kristine:
Friday, 11-14-2003: Worked all day, picked up the kids from school. Got a little work done in my hall with the wall next to the stairs.
Saturday, 11-15-2003: Yesterday me, Emily and Payton went around the block delivering girlscout cookies that she sold a few weeks ago. Payton took about 50 pictures during that walk but I decided only to put up the picture that I took instead. Take THAT, Payton.
I really wanted to take them to see the new Looney Toons movie but I’m broke so we just hung around the house all day instead. I got some work done drywalling around my stairs. Then later in the evening after the kids were gone, I built some shelves under my desk which I’ll turn into cabinets someday soon. I worked on a new section of my homepage today that goes over my complete job history. I started my list of jobs a few years ago and just never got around to completing it. There’s still a lot to do but at least some of it’s up there.
Sunday, 11-16-2003: I woke up around 5:30am today and finally got up at 6:00am and went to Quiktrip to go buy some powdered donuts. I did some video editing for about an hour, got tired and tried to go back to sleep, failed. I hate when I can’t sleep in on my days off. Later I got bored with the computer and went outside and fixed my bike. It’s had a flat tire for about a month and the front brakes don’t work too good. I tried to fix the brakes and made them worse. I decided to kill a few hours biking, so I went to downtown Alton and sat at the park watching some guy fly his kite for about an hour. Then I continued down River Road and ended up at Tricia’s mom’s house. I think the total distance was around 10 miles. Tricia ended up stopping by and she gave me a ride back home. Here’s a few pictures from the trip:
Monday, 11-17-2003: After school I took the kids to see Loony Toons and I managed to talk Tricia and her kid into going with us. It wasn’t a bad movie but it coulda been better. Next week is Cat in the Hat which I can’t wait for. Then the week after that is Timeline which is another one I’m looking forward to.
Wednesday, 11-19-2003: Went to get my oil changed and to K-mart to buy some baby monitors. Emily called me at 11am and asked if her and Payton could come over and play for a few hours. She’s home sick today. So they came over and played Halo for a few hours, then we went to McDonalds for lunch. Tricia was sick so I picked up Jordyn from daycare. We stopped by Wendy’s, McDonalds and Walgreens on the way home. Was a busy day but I managed to get a lot of work done.
Friday, 11-21-2003: For some unknown reason, today was a half-day and Emily’s school so I picked her up at 11:10am and took them both to my parents house for a few hours so that I could get some more work done. After I picked them up, I did some raking in my yard.
Saturday, 11-22-2003: Went to Target with the kids to buy some Christmas lights and toothbrushes. Then we went to see the new Cat in the Hat movie. Came back home and put up Christmas lights on the bushes outside. Then did a lot of raking and mowing on the yard.
Sunday, 11-23-2003: Me and the kids went to my parents church today. That was boring. Came home after that and did nothing besides play a lot of video games. Jordyn and Ryan were over playing for most of the afternoon. Colleen came to pick up the kids around 4pm.