i’m pretty certain at this point we’ll be here doing this:

the best part… it was all my wife’s idea.

camping and jeeping.

man… my wife is awesome!

i am.

i’m right here.

our wrangler is on it for the time being.

you can also vote for it. the winner at the end of the competition wins “stuff.” the haven’t specified yet what this “stuff” is, but i bet it’s cool.

now hurry! go look at my 15 minutes of fame!

so that means i get to do some wrenching again on the jeep.

right now, i’m working on getting the cb mounted and wired.

while i was drilling into the body tub (scary), i broke a drill bit.

i uttered a tommy boy-esque, “sonofa!” and went to lowe’s to buy a decent set of drill bits (my current set came from a home shopping network, i think).  and of course, i had to go through the self-checkout b/c of my fear of humans.  in doing so, apparently drill bits set off some sort of alarm that sends a shy high school girl over to your checkout lane to enter in some numbers and touch the screen so i can make a purchase.

she did her thing and i was on my way in less than 15 minutes (if i spend more time than that there, i spend too much money).   but on my way out, the girl stops me and asks,

can i deactivate your bits?

whaaaa?  lady, i don’t know if you noticed, but this is a wedding band…  no one comes near my bits but sarah j. chapman!

she seemed really sweet and very introverted, so i didn’t blurt that out.  i politely handed her my DRILL bits and let her swipe them over the magic pad of thievery detection and was on my way.

i laughed the whole way home.

if you have to ask what’s wrong here, you’ll just never get it.

here’s the rundown…

sarah and i went to pekin to go to my friend to joe’s son’s first bday. it was at one of the three mcdonald’s (the one by sear’s).

after the festivities, i washed the cherokee (b/c my favorite car wash is right there). then i turned to go the back way through the country road and i started singing “take me home country roads” and “thank God i’m a country boy” by john denver.

that’s when three does ran out in front of me.

i hit the middle one somehow.

the damage wasn’t too bad. mostly cosmetic. so i went back to the deer. it wouldn’t lift it’s head and it wasn’t moving so i tapped it with my foot and saw it grimace a little. it was still breathing.

i went back to the cherokee and sarah said in a rushed voice, “izzitdead?”

“yep!” i said. (you woulda lied, too if you saw her little face).

so we called the pekin police department and waited for the officer to show up so we could fill out an accident report.

in the meantime, sarah notices the thing’s head sitting up.

it was looking around.

while it was looking around, i noticed headlights swerving to dodge the part of the deer still in the road. it had ended up in the median on a 4 lane highway.

while we were waiting a couple of guys stopped to see if we were alright. one dude mentioned the cops would probably show up and shoot the deer. sarah got a little panicy. but i assured her they probably have humane ways of doing it now. shooting it is old school.

the officer showed up a few minutes later and he came to make sure we were ok. i mentioned people may be running over its legs b/c it was still partially in the road and he said he was going to go put it down right away, but not to be afraid if we heard a loud noise.

that’s when i turned up the radio. all the way.

it took a few minutes for the road to clear of other traffic, but i had a perfect view from my sideview mirror while i rubbed sarah’s shoulder.

finally, the traffic cleared and the officer put the deer out of its misery.

…then he put on some gloves and dragged it to the ditch by it’s hind legs.

all i could say was, “THEY STILL DO THIS???”

did you know police still shoot animals in public?

i guess hot lead is just way cheaper than a tranquilizer.

the cop came back and i said, “dude…  that thing was watching you!”  whenever a person approaches, the deer always look at what’s coming since they can’t run away.

he said it was pretty rough when they can look at you.  he was originally an officer in chicago and they “didn’t have to deal with this stuff,” he told me.

i didn’t get any pictures of the deer or the wrecked jeep, but i did take pictures of carter’s first birthday.

that’s carter with the cake all over, and his big sister jayci.

happy birthday, carter!

the new camaro

the new challenger

the toyota fj cruiser concept

the hummer hx concept

the gmc ute (gmc denali xt concept)

and my personal favorite…

the hummer h3t

also worthy of recognition:

the audi r8

which is sometimes akaed as my twin

i told sarah if i look like a car, i have to buy it.

ahh, if i ever get the $109,000 to buy the audi r8, i’ll have so many other things i need to buy other than an audi r8…

as always, thank you mike’s totally free jeep news

i’m trying to sort through them to figure out my favorites. but i wanna know… what do you like?

not only did i wake up today earlier than i do for work, but we were on our way to chicago by the time i’m normally just getting to work!

i wish i wore a pedometer b/c i bet i walked 10 miles today.  it was nuts.  i took almost two hundred pictures and went through two sets of batteries.

i’ll be posting those later.  right now, i’m beat.

i think it’s time to watch some futurama on the laptop in bed… ahh.  what a good end to a great day!