Ben and Jenelle DOT COM

If you’re a male between the ages of 18 and 25 and you want to stand out and be different from other young men, I have the best idea for you. It doesn’t involve getting a crazy haircut or tattoos or strange-colored clothing. You don’t have to jump into freezing water, dive off a cliff, or follow a popular band around the country. You don’t have to distance yourselves from your loved ones. All of things have been done before.

If you REALLY want to stand out, your course of action is obvious. Become a member of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America. Who knows? Maybe I will.

Those of you who are dying to know what I want for Christmas, I finally have put a list online. If I think of some other things that I want, I’ll add them. There shouldn’t be a lot of people who need to buy for me anyways, now that the gift-craziness on both sides of the family has toned down.

If there’s something on here that you’re planning on getting for me, you might want to e-mail Jenelle and make sure that no one else has already bought it for me.

After you do that, e-mail me and tell me what you want for Christmas. I have ideas for some of the people who read this, but not all. 🙂

Have fun!

First, some housekeeping:

Wednesday: Happy Birthday, Jeff! Jeff is a college friend now living in Missouri. He got married in January.

Friday: Happy Birthday, Grandma Iz!

Happy Birthday, Uncle Gary!

It’s tough to figure out why I haven’t made a blog entry in a while. Life has been very good. I’m back doing “normal” projects at work and enjoying what I do. I’m endeavoring to practice my guitar more, which I’m also enjoying. Jenelle is still as wonderful as the day I met her (actually more so). I guess the only explanation is that nothing as funny as the Muto’s pizza incident from October 18 has occurred, so I haven’t felt the need to write.

The latest Isaacson family outpost will be opened in Houston, Texas. My cousin, Todd, got a job down there and will be starting shortly before Thanksgiving. Way to go, buddy!

Tomorrow night will be nice — I’m volunteering as a blackjack dealer. I enjoy this job because it’s great fun AND it reminds me of the futility of winning money through gambling. They don’t build those places on winners.

Jenelle is becoming quite the amazing wife. She “slaved” in the kitchen yesterday evening making a pumpkin pie. No shortcuts — we steamed a pumpkin and bought all of the individual spices. We’re going to try it later when my parents come over to look at our wedding pictures.

Oh yeah, that’s right. We got our professional wedding photo album in the mail today. Looking at the pictures evokes all of the emotions you might expect from someone who’s been married for a mere seven months.

I’ll let you know about the pie. 🙂

Planning to clean and seal our deck, Jenelle and I went to Home Depot a few days ago. We bought some deck wash for $3 and some premium deck sealer for $25. We used a 10% off “pocket peeler” coupon, so our total with tax was $26.43. Not bad. We paid for it with a debit card.

After a phone call to the condo association president, we discovered that all of the phase 3 decks (including ours) will be stained in the spring. So, there’s no point in us sealing it right now. We decided to keep the deck wash and return the sealer.

I went back to Home Depot after work. I set the receipt and the sealer on the counter, and I was on my way in minutes. I checked the amount credited to the debit card. $26.24. Huh. Interesting. It seems the clerk didn’t subtract 10% when entering the credit. Assuming Home Depot doesn’t contact us about the error, we just got a bottle of deck wash for 19 cents. Perhaps the computer system only alerts the clerk if the return amount is greater than the cost of all of the items on the receipt. I have no idea what’s going on.

But I’ll bet that the deck wash is worth what we paid for it. 🙂