1.) Been a while since I did one of these.

2.) I think.

3.) It's not fair when pets tag team against their owners to get said owners up in the morning.

4.) Pets are smarter than most people give them credit for.

5.) Do we really need a DOW tracker graphic during the morning news?

6.) Isn't there enough crap on the screen already?

7.) I'm hungry.

8.) I need to shower.

9.) Not much time before I have to leave for work.

10.) Which one will win out over the other?

1.) Woke up at 4:30 this morning.

2.) Couldn't get back to sleep.

3.) Slept on the bus on the way to work.

4.) Class was okay today.

5.) One instructor needs to work on his presentation as he almost put me to sleep several times.

6.) The bus ride home was nauseating.

7.) Thanks in part to the guy I had to sit next to that passed a lot of gas.

8.) I really like the Transformers I got yesterday.

9.) Ironhide is really cool.

10.) I like Sideswipe better though.

My last day at work was a good one.  It wasn't busy at all, thank goodness, and neither was I.  Honestly, I'd toyed with the idea of not doing anything on my last day of work.  I'd joked about pushing in the books on all of the shelves in the store and pooping in the kids section.  But, I did none of that.  Instead, I worked the buy counter for two hours, met with my manager to fill out my "exit" paperwork, went to Jack in the Box for lunch, priced books for two more hours, and then helped out at the buy counter for my last two hours, pricing books in-between customers.

My coworker, a nice gal by the name of De, went to Costco and brought back huge cupcakes as a way of saying goodbye.  They were huge and delicious and I ate two of them, not in one sitting of course.  I bought the last few items out of my stash; Marvel Zombies Vs. Army of Darkness hardcover graphic novel, a VW book for my Brother-in-law, a Terry Brooks novel, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere on DVD, and a couple CDs that will serve as Christmas presents for a friend of mine down south.  The best part was that I got to say goodbye to most of the people I wanted to say goodbye too, most of those great people that I hope to stay in contact with for years to come.  As I walked toward the front of the store for the last time, I herd the beep of the paging system go off followed by, "Goodbye, Richard!" being yelled out by the people in the back room.  I almost lost it right then and there.

So, for this Tuesday, my thoughts are fond ones of things I will miss about the Tacoma Half Price Books...

1.) All the awesome, wacky, funny sound effects Brent can do.

2.) Asking Josh, "Is that Beck?" when he's playing his iPod at the buy counter when I know it isn't.  It's an inside joke between the two of us.

3.) Making Amanda laugh so hard that she snorts.  I got her to do it once today.

4.) Scaring Amanda by saying I saw someone under her car or in the back seat of her car when there isn't anyone really there.  She scares easy, ya see.

5.) Jokingly telling De, "Shut up, De," when she says something snarky or funny or anything really.

6.) The way Josh laughs and then sighs afterwards, "Heh heh heh, awww."

7.) Craig's healthy, robust laughter.  You know somethings really funny when he laughs.

8.) The way Leah and I would vent to each other in the office about this, that, or the other thing.

9.) Working Sunday morning before church lets out and it's nice and quiet in the store.

10.) Getting first dibs on all the cool stuff that people sell to the store.

I could have gone on, but it is only ten thought tuesday after all.

1.) I wish our cat would learn to be quiet.

2.) She's driving me nuts and I don't understand cat to know why she's being so darn noisy.

3.) Speaking of noisy, I hate our upstairs neighbors.

4.) I don't use that word lightly; hate.

5.) I awoke at 3:12am to the sound of running, yelling, and then screaming that lasted almost 10 minutes.

6.) The office manager will get an earful from me about them... again.

7.) All this stress makes looking forward to the new job less enjoyable.

8.) Reading the newspaper comics has helped my mood.

9.) A week from today will be my last day at Half Price Books.

10.) I think I'll miss it quite a bit.

1.) Money

2.) Work

3.) Two big stressors in my life at the moment.

4.) So tired.

5.) Can't sleep.

6.) Too much to do.

7.) Wonder what's on TV right now.

8.) I should probably keep it off.

9.) One less distraction.

10.) Spaghetti

1.) We had a good time at the Tulalip Casino on Tuesday, in memory of my Dad, who would have been 78 that day.  We even won a little bit on the slot machines thanks to a combined effort of my Wife and Mother with a little luck from Dad, shining down on us.  Thanks for a great day, Dad.

2.) I often wonder what it's like in Heaven.  What do you do?  I'm sure they don't just watch us all day long.  I think that would get boring after a while.  Maybe they have volleyball or checkers up there.  Regardless what they do, I'm sure it's good fun.

3.) I just finished watching an episode of Family Guy, where Tom Tucker becomes Peter's step-dad for a brief time.  At one point in the episode, Tom and Peter go out for milkshakes.  Now, I want a milkshake.  But, it's only 7:30 in the morning and far too early for one.  Maybe I'll have one at lunch today.

1.) Jaime's TTT cheered me up.

2.) I'm tired.

3.) I don't want to do anything today.

4.) But, I'm gonna have to anyway.

5.) It should hit 90 degrees today.

6.) I'm drawing a blank.

7.) I find myself questioning a lot of things about my life this morning.

8.) Maybe I'm just in a funk.

9.) That reminds me of an annoying Jack in the Box commercial.

10.) I wish Geiko would stop using cavemen in their commercials already.

1.) I'm really tired.

2.) Cat woke me up at 5am and I just can't seem to get back to sleep despite being tired.

3.) So, I'm watching episodes of "Transformers: Cybertron" while waiting to go to work.

4.) I hope work isn't busy today.

5.) It'd be nice to catch up on my work load.

6.) I had a fantastic dream last night that I can't remember a single detail of.

7.) All I remember is waking up wanting to go back to sleep so I could hopefully pick up where I left off.

8.) There shouldn't be Transformers with French accents.

9.) I hope the Clone Wars movie that come out in 2 weeks is good.

9.) Today's picture contains figures inspired by the original Clone Wars cartoon.

10.) Only took them three years to make them.

1.) Mom brought a blueberry buckle to work yesterday.

2.) My coworkers devoured over half of it in less than 30 minutes.

3.) She was happy to hear everyone loved her dessert.

4.) Speaking of work, there is so much to do and I gave up all my section work time to try to get the back room caught up.

5.) Unfortunately, you can't tell I did a damn thing despite working my ass off.

6.) Speaking of blueberry buckle, I'm leaving for Mom's in a few minutes to pick up one for me and the misses.

7.) My mouth is already watering.

8.) I'm having trouble thinking of more thoughts.

9.) I hate when that happens.

10.) Oh look!  I'm done!

1.) Sunstreaker, the yellow robot pictured, fell over last night around 4am.

2.) He knocked Duke, the one with the flag, over, and Duke landed on my head.

3.) This woke me up.

4.) Somewhere in the bedroom is Duke's rifle, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

5.) Of the 3 Transformers in the picture, Octane, the one on the right, is the one I find the most fun to fiddle with.

6.) Barbecue, he red armored guy, is a new addition to the collection.

7.) I had to have him since he's always been one of my favorite characters.

8.) The guy that looks like Snake-Eyes with red goggles is really Firefly.

9.) He came in a 2-pack with the Storm Shadow pictured and a nifty comic book written by Larry Hama.

10.) It's easy to rearrange Sunstreaker to look completely different than pictured, likely due to the rumor his brother Sideswipe will be released later in the year.

11.) I'm watching Transformers Animated with the Spanish audio this morning and not understanding a word of it, but having fun anyway.

1.) I slept in until 9am this morning.

2.) That's extremely late for me.

3.) I loved eating tacos during grade school lunch hours.

4.) I still enjoy tacos.

5.) The blueberry bushes at Mom's house are starting to ripen.

6.) I'm eagerly awaiting Mom's blueberry buckle.

7.) Dad always liked the blueberries and the buckles.

8.) I'm seeing my friend Paul this coming weekend.

9.) We haven't seen each other in about 20 years.

10.) I'm scared and excited at the same time.

1.) We got the DVDs of Dad's Memorial and Honor Guard services this afternoon.

2.) I took them to Mom's after I picked them up, which was after work today.

3.) I was torn if I wanted to watch it.

4.) We did.

5.) It was hard to watch, especially during the eulogy and the playing of Taps.

6.) I'm glad we watched it though.

7.) In the past two days, I've bought three Transformers.

8.) They're all cool in they're own way.

9.) The new Soundwave comes with a guitar that turns into Laserbeak.

10.) I wonder what Dad is doing right now.

1.) Over a month ago, I saw a Father's Day card at Target while Dad was in the hospital. It was a kiddie card with Optimus Prime from the 2007 movie on the front and when you opened it you heard him say, "Autobots, transform and roll out." Dad wasn't a big Transformers fan, but he knew I liked them and I thought it would be a goofy card to give him as a gag. I walked around with it in hand while I shopped, but when I got to the cashier, I decided to put it back. I think on some level I might have known Dad wouldn't see it.  After he passed away, I saw it again and this time I bought it.

This past Sunday, on Father's Day, I wrote in it, thanking him for all he did and how I missed him, and took it with me when we went to the cemetery. I left it by his marker as we stood there in silence. Mom asked if she could take it home with her since they'd likely just throw it out after a while, so I said yes. Now it hangs in his bedroom, still sealed. But, I'd like to think he read it somehow.

2.) Today, I was helping Mom out by cleaning the back gutters of her home.  Two years back, my parents had a new roof installed, but apparently they didn't clean up their mess, so there was a lot of old roof crap in the gutter.  On one side, as she showed me yesterday, two small trees were growing out of the drain pipe.  I pulled them out and tried to dig the stuff out, but it was packed in good.  So, I went from one end to the other, shovelling and grabbing the larger pieces then I went back through with the hose and moved the remaining sludge to the other end and down the good drain pipe.

Mom has a "snake" that she used when Dad would clog the toilet so she wouldn't have to pay a plumber $95 for 15 minutes of work.  I tried using that on the clogged end to no avail.  I felt a sort of whisper in my ear that said to try blasting the crud with the hose.  So, I grabbed the nozzle and slowly began to barrel water into the clog.  Some stuff seeped up and out, so I scooped it away and continued to shoot water into the drain.  Next thing I know, Mom's hollering that water was coming through at the bottom.  I kept going and soon the drain pipe was clear.  I'd like to think that whisper I heard was Dad lending a helping hand.  Thanks, Dad, for continuing to look out for us.

1.) Happy birthday, Brandon!

2.) Our cat, Fiona, loves to play with and drop our digital camera.

3.) She finally broke the viewing screen on the back of it yesterday.

4.) The thing still works, but you can't see about 1/2 of what you're taking a picture of.

5.) Thankfully, our new digital video camera takes pics too.

6.) Just have to figure out how that works.

7.) It's June and the mountain passes have been getting snow for the past 10 hours.

8.) I thought this was supposed to be global warming.

9.) This is day 3 of six in a row at work for me.

10.) Gonna help Mom out up some pictures at her home this morning.  Off I go!

1) Considering I only worked 2 days in the month of May, work went well for me yesterday.

2) I find that talking to someone, in person, for the first time about my Dad brings me to tears.

3) Subsequent conversations seem to be fine.

4) I wish I knew why that was, but I'm not concerned.

5) I preordered LEGO Indiana Jones for the PSP last week.

6) Gamestop called me last night about it.

7) I will pick it up this morning when the store opens.

8) Only 1 hour and 20 minutes left to wait.

9) I'm finally eating breakfast after being up for over an hour.

10) A bowl of Apple Jacks.

1.) I can't stop thinking about my Dad.

2.) He's the man I wish I could be.

3.) I feel like this is the situation with my uncle all over again.

4.) No one deserves that.

5.) I have hope.

6.) So does Mom.

7.) It's my faith I find wavering again.

8.) I'm so angry.

9.) But have no outlet for it.

10.) My right arm hurts.

1.) It's Tuesday, right?

2.) Last week at this time, I was rushing to my parent's home.

3.) I can still hear Mom's panicked voice on the phone in my head.

4.) Dad's doing better today.

5.) He smiled, talked a bit, and nodded.

6.) I want to watch Looney Tunes.

7.) While eating Lucky Charms.

8.) I am so damn tired.

9. ) Looks like I have another abscess.

10.) So while Mom visits Dad on the 4th floor, I'll be in the ER on the 2nd.

Bonus!  11.) woo... hoo...

1.) Got more sleep than I usually did last night.

2.) Which isn't saying that much, unfortunately.

3.) Had a decent day at work.

4.) Didn't get everything I wanted to get done though.

5.) My STARS shirt and coffee mug arrived today from Cafe Press.

6.) They decided to pull the image due to potential licensing issues.

7.) No one else ordered it before it was pulled.

8.) I have 2 one-of-a-kind pieces now.

9.) Gonna meet the gang tonight to show them off.

10.) There is no number 10 today.

1.) Better late than never, eh?

2.) I woke up this morning with a killer headache.

3.) It blossomed into a fever a couple hours later.

4.) This was while I was at work, so I went home 3 hours into my shift.

5.) I slept for 3 hours.

6.) That was after making our third car payment.

7.) I still have to call a guy about an estimate on the damage to the new car.

8.) Hopefully, it won't be too much.

9.) Stupid people and their unsecured loads, leaving metal poles on the highway.

10.) The Biggest Loser finale is on.