Since my last post, I proposed to Joy and she said yes.  Surprised?  I wasn't.  I am happy to report that the wedding plans are coming along great and we are ahead of where we need to be. 

Along with the wedding plans, we decided it would be a good time to buy a house.  It's a buyer's market, interest rates are good, and we both will have to move anyways.  We are currently under contract and are negotiating some repairs after the inspection on last Friday.  All in all, things are going well with that. 

I have a confession to make:  I am that guy that leaves his shopping cart whereever in the parking lot.  I wasn't always that guy and I don't know how long it took, but it happened. 

About a month and a half ago I picked up a nail in the back tire on the motorbike.  I decided to wait till after Christmas to pony up the dough for the rubber, so Sunday I did the deed.  I hadn't realized how much I had worn the center of the old tire flat.  This week has been even more fun on the motorbike than ever before, it just leans into turns so easily.  Extremely inspiring. 

Since I have fashioned a new exhaust pipe for my bike my gas mileage has gone down.  But the pipe sounds good, and the bike feels more responsive, but that might be an illusion. 

Some of you have noted that I have not blogged in a while.  It's true that it has been a bit longer than usual since my last post, but I began to think about how often I blog, which is not as often most bloggers.  I am really more of a semi-blogger.  I am not a clever writer nor do I have a great deal to tell the world so this did not come as a surprise to me.  So there.

Last week the dealership sent me to a class in the Dallas area on hybrid technology.  This class was mainly an overview of the technology and the vehicles Toyota uses it in.  We learned about how the system works and some basic information about the components and their assembly.  We also explored several common issues customers encounter with hybrid vehicles.  All this to say that I got to take a three day, paid vacation from work where sat in the air conditioning and play with hybrid cars. 

As some of you know, my older brother and his wife recently had their first child, Philip Thomas Hatch.  This means that I am now an uncle.  PT is doing well and has already made his first look, Blue Steel I believe. 

Ok, there has been an important development in my life recently and I should have blogged about it before now.

For those of you that have been wondering and the rest that have remained oblivious, yes, Joy and I are dating now.  It's been about two and a half weeks.  I will share no more details in this format, you can ask us if you want. I just needed to write about it because, if anything is blog worthy, it is this. 

Last weekend my parents were trying to get some family over to their newly acquired house for lunch.  I went up on Thursday evening and decided to take the motorcycle so that I could go for a ride with my dad on Friday morning.  It had been a while since I took a trip on the motorcycle and I was sore when I got to Double Oak.  The ride on Friday was good, we found some good roads and then I had dinner with my mom and the younger brothers that night.  Good times.  After lunch with the family on Saturday I headed back to the hill country on another long ride. 

I saw a birth control commercial today where a woman was portrayed as a pair of people, one representing her logical side, one representing her emotional side.  What struck me about the commercial was that the two sides of her personality were dressed differently.  I wondered why they did this, being strongly logical or strongly emotional doesn't necessarily affect what you wear.  You can dress a certain way for purely logical reasons and dress the same way for purely emotional reasons.  Strange ad. 

Tonight I am watching Bones, a show I have mentioned in my blog before.  What fascinates me about the show is the interaction between the two main characters, Special Agent Seeley Booth and Dr. Temperence Brennan (Bones).  Bones is all scientist, all the time.  She is extremely logical and very literal.  Booth, on the other hand, is very relational and has a measure of faith in God which comes up in the show.  Because of their personalities, Booth is always explaining emotional and relational things to Bones, which seems to me to be the opposite of your stereotypical male/female relationship.  Ok, I realize that that may sound a little sexist, but aren't women usually having to explain emotional things to men?  They do with me sometimes.  Anyways.

One final note, those E-Trade commercials with the baby in them are awesome.  If you haven't seen them, look for them on youtube or something. 

Back in April I made my 14th jump from an airplane.  At the time I didn't have the pictures to show what my landing looked like.  I got them today.  They are in my pictures under "My Photos".  You can see in the progression how I managed to land sideways. 

Yesterday I saw an article on MSN titled: "How to Leave Your Husband".  That's terrible.  The article was about how to get out of a marraige without destroying your finances.  Still terrible.  The idea that saving your finances is more important than saving your marraige is a prime example of how screwed up peoples' priorities are.  I'm sure most people weren't shocked at the article at all.  Terrible.

Moving
As posted previously, I needed to be out of my house by the end of last month.  That didn't happen.  I did, however, get an extension from the landlord and was able to get into a new place by the fourth, not too shabby.  I took the day off of work to move, but we didn't sign the lease till 11am and we didn't get a trailer till 8pm and there was only two of us for the first half of the move and we had to move everything and clean and turn in the keys in the same day.  Quite a task, but we did manage to get it done, by 5:30am.  That right, we started at 12pm, finished at 5:30am, and went to work shortly after that. 

This morning, I was watching some tv before church and I saw a commercial for a casual dining restaurant that showed a priest eating with the devil.  The idea was that their food could bring all kinds of people together.  I think they might be reaching a bit, nevertheless, the ad was slightly disturbing.  That combined with seeing a New Kids on the Block video (apparently, they are back together) just made it a weird morning all around. 

The Reprieve
This morning I awoke and replaced the starter on my Pathfinder and thus granted it a reprieve from death.  Not what I was planning on doing today, but, since my original plans did not work out, I had plenty of time for this task. 

Hamburger Wrappers
Does anyone remember when hamburger wrappers had mulitple labels on them?  Depending on how they folded it they could label the burger with it's name.  I thought about that today as I sat in Wendy's.  How many things like that do I expend brain function on?  Should I be concerned?

A Television Observation
I have noticed that I often identify with television characters who either have some sort of social awkwardness or strange personality quirk.  Here are a few examples:
  
    House, M.D. - Dr. House is a diagnostic physician who takes on the tough       medical dilemmas that no one else can figure out.  His ability to troubleshoot your current ailment is second to none.  His personality, however, is so abrasive he drives almost everyone away from himself. 
    Dexter - Dexter Morgan is a blood splatter analysis expert for the Miami Police Department.  Did I mention he is a serial killer?  But he only kills killers.  His foster dad discovered when Dexter was young that he had the mental dispostion towards killing, so he helped him learn how to focus it on the bad guys.  Because of this, he can't let anyone know who he really is, lest they find out how he has taken the law into his own hands on a number of occasions. 
    Bones - Dr. Temperance Brennan is the top forensic scientist at the Jeffersonian Institute where she helps the FBI solve tough cases.  Her rational rules all of her actions and often hinders her interactions with people, she has trouble understanding them sometimes. 

All of these characters have a few things in common:  1) They are brilliant in their methods about what they do, 2) Some sort of odd personality or social awkwardness, 3) They are extremely rational and logical.  I definately identify with the third one, I feel the second one most of the time, but I come up with nothing on the first.  House also limps and rides a motorcycle, which is a bonus.  Now, I don't write this fishing for comments like "You're brilliant in your own way.".  Cause I think statements like that are crap.  I am only making an observation. 

The Prospect of Homelessness
We have to be out of our house one week from today.  No place to move to yet.  That's not much time considering I work all of those days but tomorrow and it's Memorial Day weekend.  We've had two opportunities fall out from under us so far and I haven't been able to find much else.  I don't really think I'll end up homeless, God will send us something.  Just hasn't yet. 

It started out a humid Wednesday morning.  I could tell by the way the air stuck to my skin that this day would be a good one.  I mounted my faithful steed and journeyed to the land of the round rock, to the place of my employment.  The work load was light, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to fuel my curious nature.  Upon my return home I discovered a small visitor on my driveway.  A bird, a baby to be more specific, starved or exhausted from the heat.  Poor thing didn't make it.  Following the death trend, the starter on my Pathfinder also kicked it this week, meaning I get to push start it until I get a chance to replace my starter.  Fun times.  So all that's left now is for me to retire to the bed, discover if I can sleep tonight.  

Today I went riding around Blanco with two of my coworkers, it was a blast.  The weather was great and the traffic was more than acceptable.  We got to our first gas stop and Brandon gave me some advice on my turns.  This was probably the best advice for anyone operating a motor vehicle.  He said "Smoother, not faster".  He also gave me some advice on setting up my turns and gave me a good opportunity to work on some things.  So today was not only fun, but educational as well.