I would, however, like to take a few minutes to summarize what’s been going on since my last update.

The reality of it is, not a whole lot has happened. As is typical of most ordinary people, I live a pretty ordinary life. The only exception to my ordinary life is perhaps my job, but even that isn’t too far out of the ordinary. It’s not as if I’m doing anything magical or special.

So, let’s start with my job. My week last week ended late wednesday evening (at least, my week in the office, I did work from home like any good workaholic would). One of our software engineers and I were working on getting a sweepstakes module working on our system for a promotion we had going on later that night. The code was already done for that module (we had used it a few months ago for another promotion), but we had to figure out what we needed to do to get a sweepstakes up and running. It would have been incredibly simple, except the engineer who wrote it had the day off and wasn’t here to help. So, we stayed late and got it working. That scenario likely wouldn’t have happened had we known prior to noon on thursday that this event was taking place. Regardless, I took the opportunity to snap a few shots of the downtown Indy skyline as seen from our fourth floor office with my digital camera. They came out slightly blurry, mainly because I’m still getting used to how to shoot with that camera. It’s the first I’ve owned. Ever.

After work, I went home and Ann came over (she had to go into work early wednesday, and so got out at a time when she and I could hang out) and we watched some TV, then went and got dinner at steak n shake (famous for steakburgers, and pissing off colts fans) which was a mistake because a ton of local high school kids were there. They were being horribly obnoxious and loud (think very loud school cafeteria), and really impeded my ability to enjoy my meal. Note to self: Don’t go to steak and shake on a non-school night.

Thursday late morning / early afternoon I went with my sister, grandmom and mom down to Bloomington for thanksgiving at my other sisters house. It was a good time, though I didn’t think to bring out my camera until the day AFTER thanksgiving, despite having taken it with me. I did get some good shots of Fred with Angel (whom he dubbed the “Devil Cat”), and the shot you see at the top there of my sister Beth and her husband Mark, which is just plain classic (sorry Beth, I couldn’t resist!).

I drove back to Indy not long after the pictures were taken, and spent some time working before I went over to Ben’s to hang out and play Super Mario Strikers, which is a mario soccer game that is insanely fun to play. This is perhaps the first console game I’ve actually ENJOYED playing, and that I was pretty good at too.

Saturday Ann came back into town, and I was quite happy to be spending time with her. My parents, Maura, Ann and I went to Abuellos near my house for dinner, then Maura Ann and I rented movies (Maura rented, Ann and I watched them with her). The rest of the night was spent watching some of them.

Sunday Ann and I went shopping at Old Navy and Bed Bath and Beyond. I was utterly shocked to find that I actually enjoyed this, and in fact am looking forward to buying my own house so that I can decorate it with all kinds of neat things. That both made me smile, and made me more scared than ever. I’m growing up. I got excited about plates (they were really sweet plates….). That night was spent watching tv, a movie, going to eat, and generally relaxing.

And Finally, my only real complaint. I wish Ann worked normal hours. Right now she works 2:30PM until around 11-11:30 pm. That means I don’t really get to see her during the week. It was nice getting to hang out with her after work the one week she was on vacation, and it made me realize how much I would really like for that to be a more common occurance.

That’s about it, guys.

I have no doubt, however, that his posts will be both informative and funny. He seems to enjoy getting himself into trouble.

First, let me start out by saying that I don’t remember all of the details of how this happened; it was over a year ago and the finer details got misplaced somewhere in the rusty steel trap I call my brain. Keeping that in mind, if someone reading this knows of the story and thinks “hey, that’s not how it happened”, you’re probably very correct. Parts of this will likely be completely made up.

So, one day, about a little over a year ago, I got back home to my VIP suite (You spend more than 4 years at that school and you can live wherever the hell you want on that campus….) and knew instinctively that something was not quite right. I couldn’t at the time figure out what it was. I checked my email in my office and chatted on AIM with the guy across the hall (Bob Jansen) for a few minutes while pondering what was out of place. After a few minutes of that I went to watch TV and just as I turned on Comedy Central I realized what it was… Fred was not there. Usually, Fred would stay in bed and sleep all day (and then rub that fact into my face when I got home). Other days he’d be sitting on the sofa watching tv when I got home. Occasionally, I would catch him looking at inappropriate pictures on the Internet. Today, he was doing none of the above. I looked around for a few minutes seeing if I could find him, and was growing more worried as time went on.

It was about 10 minutes into the search when I found it. A note. A poorly written note. It said simply: “ey kant go on. ey am 2 tired. Ey wil mis u. – Fred”. I then noticed the second thing that was “wrong”, the window was open. Stepping over to the window, I saw what was the remenants of a “crime scene”, with a distinctly frog-shaped chalk outline. I cried.

On the surface, it looked very much like Fred had been upset about something and decided to end his little froggie life. I couldn’t figure out what, though. He had seemed particularly chipper that morning. I couldn’t see any warning signs that would point to the little guy killing himself. That was probably because he hadn’t really killed himself, it was staged. Pretty quickly I made the realization that Fred can’t write… his hands are incapable of holding writing instruments. Add to that the fact that no police agency would actually draw a chalk outline of a frog.

As it turns out, it was a frognapping. Ann’s stuffed Bunny (named Ginger Bunny), had some of her friends come find Fred and bring him to her, because she thought he was cute. Ann caught on to the plot and recovered fred and brought him back to me (mostly) unharmed. He did have a lump on his head where one of the goons hit him with a AA battery, though. A strategically placed band-aid made him good as new, though.

Ever since then, Fred has insisted on learning martial arts, and can often be found sneaking around setting up boobytraps whenever I’m not home to protect him. He did, however, start dating Ginger Bunny… but that’s another story.

[Edit: 11/20/06 6:08pm EST] Fred wants it to be known that he reads all comments on here, so if you want to say something to Fred you can leave it in a comment here.

I “liberated” Fred from an individual from my past; a humanitarian act of monumental proportions. He’s since become my Hobbes. Yes, I’m totally serial. He’s taken on a kind of alter-ego personality, and has become my little buddy, watching me play video games ( I know, I know, I should be outside playing games or running around… call me a hypocrite, whatever. ) or watching movies with me and Ann. He also has little adventures.

So, how did this all get started? It all really started on Kairos 41, when I was a student leader. I took Fred along with me. Brother Tim kept making comments about how he was looking forward to having frog legs for dinner, and how it wasn’t at all uncommon for stuffed animals to go missing. I took steps that any unrational person would take… I handcuffed fred to me. As people kept asking me why Fred was handcuffed to me, I spun an elaborate tale about how fred snuck out the previous night and went to the gambling boats, when the staff there tried to kick him out for being to roudy, he refused and got arrested. The police brought him back to me and I assured them that he would stay away from the boats. They told me it was my ass if he went back. I asked for and recieved a pair of handcuffs, and never left fred out of my sight. Everyone seemed quite amused by this story, and the legend of Fred was born. I still have people ( fellow team members) who tell me to say hi to fred and give him a hug from them. Every time it makes the little guy’s ego swell.

When I went down to Louisiana after Katrina, I left Fred in Ann’s care. I knew a hurricane drenched state was no place for a froggie like him. It was while I was gone on that trip that Fred got his nickname: Mean Green. I still don’t know all that he did while I was gone, neither Ann nor he will talk about it.

One time, my iPod went missing. I found out what happened to it a few days later when I caught Fred with it, listening to all kinds of techo music. He loves the techno, and I have no idea why.

During my last semester at SJC, there were several occasions when Ann would come over to my dorm suite (seriously, it was way too big for one person, I had a freakin King size bed, sofa, coffee table, bathroom, and office! ) and Fred would do things to ambush her and scare her. It was pretty funny when he took my ring and called it a wrist laser and hung over the door waiting for her to arrive.