This weekend there were three big events: I finally had the big rotten stump (the 12 foot high one) cut down and the stump sawed out, which already makes the house look a lot better; Beth had her first $500 jewelry party; and the computer had brain surgery. Actually, more like brainwashing. I finally got sick of the slow beast grinding and chugging on everything so I gave it the ol' format c:. I do however have the important stuff backed up on an Iomega drive. Anyway, I fought with the carcass so much I came close more than once to just driving to the Gateway store in Ft. Wayne and getting a new one. but I persevered, and it seems to be running all right now. Lots less garbage on the hard drive.

Busy week and busy weekend. A week ago last Friday Mom Knight flew in for a visit. I left work early so we could go pick her up at Midway airport in Chicago...next time we'll have her go to Indianapolis because the airport is so much easier to get to. The drive from the highway to the airport took almost as long as the drive from Warsaw to the outskirts of Chicago. Anyway, we had a very nice visit. We really didn't do anything special but had some good quality time hanging out. Mom also drove up to Kalamazoo to visit old friends there for a day and extended her visit by a day so she could go to my softball game last Tuesday, which turned out to be as good a game as she could have gone to since I was 3-for-4 with a good show defensively, and my base hit started the late-inning rally that won the game for our team. BTW I've clawed my average back up to 0.500 (16-32). I took Tuesday and Wednesday off, Wednesday so we could drive her back to the airport. I also took last Friday off because it was Beth's and my 10th anniversary. We went on a mini-vacation up to Nappanee. We stayed in a nice B&B for 2 nights but we probably won't stay in Nappanee again because there's not much to do when the antiquey and Amish things get old. We drove up to Mishawaka twice for something to do and a place to eat. We exchanged presents at Olive Garden Friday night. She got a very nice anniversary band, and the people the next table over thought I was asking her to marry me and applauded and congratulated us. Beth got me a nice watch. We looked through campers at a place up there, Elkhart is full of them. We came back today, I spent 4 hours at work catching up, and we had the usual Sunday night movie at our friends' house. Tonight it was "Memento." I think I need to see it again.

This past weekend was Zimmer's annual company picnic at Indiana Beach amusement park. This picnic thing is a great deal! Admission and all rides are free all day, plus $6 in coupons to spend on food or gifts any way you want to. Free admission to the water park (which was nice, but the water was kind of cold). All in all a great deal and a very nice time. Roller coasters to boot, which were good considering how small they are (Indiana Beach ain't Cedar Point or Busch Gardens). After the day at the park, we got home a something like 10 pm and I got to see almost an entire hockey game. I tuned in just in time to see Brett Hull score the tying goal, and stayed up until the triple-overtime game was over and the Red Wings go up in the series 2-1. Tonight they go up 3-1 on another Hasek shutout. The Stanley Cup is practically in the bag.

I've never before gone to a friend's house to watch a hockey game, but did tonight for game 1 of the Cup finals. And the Red Wings lose in OT. Oh well, we'll get 'em. Beth was doing a jewelry show in MI tonight.

Sam's 1st birthday party was this Sunday. Saturday Beth did some gardening while I watched, then we went from the garden to the Mentone Egg Festival Saturday. The festival was just about over and pretty well in the process of shutting down, but we spotted a camper we want, a 23' 1996 model 5th wheel for sale on someone's lawn. They want $6500; it might as well be ten million. The other day I spotted the truck I want to pull it with, a 2002 Dodge Dakota quad cab 4x4 V-8, jet black. It's $23500, might as well be a billion jillion skillion.