Fragmented Friday - Back From the (Brain) Dead

Many apologies for the my unannounced hiatus from blogging. To be honest, over the last couple of months I've had trouble writing up much of anything, whether it be a blog post or email or Sunday school lesson or short story or what have you; I'd try, but could not find the focus. In fact, I had planned to write this particular blog post on Monday, but you can see how well that panned out. Still, I need to get my writing juices jump-started somehow, so here's a brief update on three pretty big things that have been going on.

1) Cap'n Shack-Fu has now officially passed his Phase II exam for entrance to the FBI, and has also passed his physical fitness test and polygraph; it's now on to the background check. However, while he did technically pass the physical fitness test in order to move on to the next step in the hiring process, he was one point away from being totally in the clear. Instead, he's now on physical fitness probation and must report back to the FBI each week with a progress report on how his workouts are going, and might even have to head down to the branch office periodically for observation. Now, since he was only one point behind due to not being able to work out while on deployments, it shouldn't be too hard for him to bring the score up . . . as long as he doesn't get deployed again, that is.

2) The Lovable PigPen has now officially moved from a status of "Roomie" to "Fomer Roomie." Li'l Random and I helped PigPen and Cap'n Peanut move into their new place in Lewisville last weekend, a task we were both more than happy to assist with up until Peanut mentioned that we were going to have to move his piano into their second floor apartment; think when it comes time for them to move out Li'l Brother and I are going to take up a collection so they can get movers to take the damnable thing back down the stairs. It's been odd walking by PigPen's empty room all week, and I've had a couple of "Can't wait to tell PigPen when he gets . . . oh, wait . . ." moments here and there. Right now Maverick and I are trying to find a new roomie to help out with the rent and bills since our lease is of the "we're responsible for rent until someone else takes over" variety, something that's becoming even more of a priority due to the next item.

3) Maverick is officially a car owner again. After over a year and a half without a reliably running vehicle, he picked up a used car this past weekend. The upside for me is that now I can go back to my old work schedule and not have to worry about coordinating rides. The downside is that throwing in car payments, insurance, and gas costs on top of increased rent and bills is going to stretch Maverick's budget to the brink. So, if you happen to know of a single, non-smoking male with a reliable source of income looking for a place to live in the Denton area, well, you know who to call.