Zoo and alien dream.

Yesterday, Harry and I went to the local zoo for my company's annual picnic. Admission, lunch, and tickets to the IMAX theater were all free. I brought my digital camera along and took over 50 pictures. Liz and one of her female friends (with that friend's young son) joined us after lunch. We watched a 3-D IMAX movie about sharks. The 3-D glasses were kind of dorky-looking, but the 3-D itself was amazing. I found myself early on in the movie reaching out toward the images and trying to dodge jellyfish that seemed to be swimming right at me. After the movie, we walked around the zoo for several hours. We visited a group of deserts inside a large dome, then saw some alligators and various nocturnal animals in a structure underneath the deserts. We also visited the aquarium, which was cool because it has a glass tunnel underneath a huge tank with sharks and small rays in it. You can actually watch sharks swim over your head (as the pic above illustrates). We also checked out the large cats (mostly tigers), the gorillas, the elephants, and the rhinos. I saw some of my coworkers there, but we only ran into one person from my work area. We left the zoo around 6pm and ate dinner at a local Italian place. All and all, it was a great time.

Last night or early this morning, I had another dream about aliens. This time, they were tall aliens that only vaguely resembled Grays. I was at my parents' farm, and the aliens came to the house. Sensing they were up to something I wouldn't like, I grabbed one of them and stabbed it with a knife. For good measure, I began cutting the alien up (especially when it tried to fake me out by assuming human form after I stabbed it). I heard noises outside, and I saw police officers out the living room window. They were headed for the front door, so I hid the dead alien and forced the other one into a room. I talked briefly with the officers, then they left. I opened the door to the room I had thrown the living alien into, and it emerged from the room in human guise. It looked like a bald, portly man just under six feet tall. I grabbed the alien by the collar of its jacket and said, "Where is your ship? How do I make its technology work?" (Or something like that). It laughed at me, and I knew it wouldn't give me any answers. Timmy showed up, and I said, "This is the guy who molested you in your sleep!" I didn't know that for sure, but I did know this alien was involved in abductions and experiments on humans in the area. When Timmy heard this, he got angry. I said, "Sick 'em, boy!" and Timmy pounced on the alien and began beating it up.

This week at work.

No really interesting dreams lately. This week at work was Employee Appreciation Week, which was pretty cool. We had breakfast catered on Monday morning, which was omelettes, some fruit, donuts, bagels, and muffins. On Tuesday, we got smoothies, and I was pleased to get a cappuccino smoothie (I'm not big on fruit, other than apples). On Wednesday, we got salads for lunch, which I declined since I'm not big on green veggies. Today, we had popcorn and later dinner at this company-wide meeting. Our speaker was a guy who had been in a plane crash, then taken and held prisoner with several other Americans by the Chinese for nearly two weeks before he was released. It was an amazing and inspirational story. Tomorrow at work, we're getting cookies, and my department is having a food day to celebrate the wife of my boss approaching the due date for their first child. I'm bringing cookies, since my area has been charged with providing desserts for this occasion.

Still amused by the interactions between Tony and Debby. They threw some stuff at each other at one point today. There was some mild physical interaction between them--Debby shoving Tony--but you could tell that she wasn't really angry at him, just mildly (for her anyway) annoyed. She was asking him about his girlfriends, and he was like "which one?" He was joking with her about how she ranked in our area in terms of her speciality. My team leader takes all of this in stride, knowing that it isn't really mean-spirited, just loud joking between coworkers.

LEGO Darth Vader and other stuff.

Well, I finally got to be Darth Vader in LEGO Star Wars on Saturday night. On Friday night, I earned "True Jedi Status" on the only chapter I hadn't gotten it on yet (Chapter 4 in Episode 3), unlocking the mystery chapter. I played the mystery chapter on Saturday night. The mystery chapter is the beginning of Episode 4 (Star Wars: A New Hope) where Leia's transport ship is caught by a Star Destroyer and boarded by Vader and his stormtroopers. In the game, I got to be Vader with a single stormtrooper companion. I fought and killed several LEGO Rebel soldiers as I explored the ship. I used the Force (and my lightsaber) to destroy a lot of stuff and used the Force to spell "LEGO" in one room, causing blue studs to rain from the ceiling. I also got C3-P0 out of a glass containment thing and used him to open some doors for me. Finally, I got to enter a room and see Princess Leia interacting with R2-D2 at the end of the chapter. After that, I decided to try some Free Play with Vader on some other levels. I played him on some Episode 1 chapters, fighting Darth Maul at the end of Chapter 6 and retaking Threed in Chapter 5. The interesting thing about Chapter 6 is that the computer player accompanying me changed into Vader itself a few times, including during the final battle with Darth Maul. Imagine that: two Darth Vaders fighting with Darth Maul. For kicks, I played as Vader in Chapter 5 of Episode 1 and had the computer player with me as Anakin (Jedi Apprentice or Jedi Knight?). Of course, in Free Play, the computer player (Player 2) and Player 1 can switch to certain other characters in a set choosen by the game, which made it even more interesting when I discovered I could switch to the child version of Anakin from Episode 1. In that chapter, I could play Anakin in three different forms: child, apprentice, and Darth Vader.

Harry and I went to see Talladega Nights: the Ballad of Ricky Bobby on Saturday afternoon. It was a pretty funny movie, and it also had an important lesson: no one wins on their own. Every victor has people standing behind them--friends, teammates, family, teachers, etc--backing them up, encouraging them, or doing the little things that make success attainable.

Another strange dream, life in general.

I had another strange dream: this time, I dreamt I was lost in space. I was with a group of space explorers sometime in the distant future. We had flown into deep space in a spaceship, but the engines that brought us out there broke down, so we couldn't get back as quickly as we had gotten out there. To make things even more strange, we found a magic lamp in a pile of stuff on board the ship. An alien that resembled Q from "Star Trek: the Next Generation" showed up on the ship, found out the name of the genie in the lamp (a prerequisite for making wishes with this particular genie-lamp set), and made some wishes. One of the wishes resulted in him getting his own talk show in 21st century America.

Now for my real life: in general, things have been so-so. I got to bed earlier last night than I have the past few nights, but a thunderstorm woke me over 20 minutes early this morning. I've been cleaning around my apartment this week, mostly in my bathroom. More humorous interactions between Tony and Debby: she was railing on him about him asking her a bunch of work-related questions, then when she left on a smoke break and our team leader asked where she was, Tony said, "I ate her." Part of me wonders if they're secretly in love or attracted to one another. I saw them returning together from another break later in the day. I've been reading a book my friend Harry loaned me today: "City of Heroes: the Freedom Phalanx." I'm hoping to spend more time playing my LEGO Star Wars game this weekend, maybe see a movie with Harry and Liz.

David, Dream Alien Slayer?

Well, I had another dream about aliens showing up and me attacking them. This time, the aliens were in this craft that showed up at the mall. It was silvery and resembled a bumpy silver dish, almost like a silver kickball that someone had tried to squish and was only half-successful at it. I felt like I recognized the ship, like it was something from the new version of The War of the Worlds. It sprouted legs, but I leapt on it and pushed it down. The craft began rolling around like it has wheels under it, and I clung to it (when I tackled it, it shrank to nearly the size of a sea turtle) for dear life. It carried me into a shop in the mall, and I spotted some police officers. One of them was a woman, and I said, "Excuse me, Miss Police Officer Lady, do you have something that can cut glass?" (or something along those lines). She handed me something like a scalpel with a jagged edge when the alien craft rolled close enough for her to reach me. I used it to cut through the craft's silver skin. To my astonishment, the skin was rubbery when I cut it instead of being hard like glass or metal. I glimpsed a fleshly gross alien inside as I tore at the silvery rubber skin of the craft. I don't remember what happened after that.

Day off, almost there.

I had today off of work for an eye doctor's appointment. Fortunately, when I inadvertantly packed some ear wax deeper into my left ear with a Q-tip (instead of digging it out as I had intended) last Thursday, I was able to see an ear doctor today to get that taken care of. As I expected, he flushed the wax out with a really noisy machine that went into my ear. By the way, the eye doctor's appointment went well: no need to get new glasses.

I got some funner things done today as well. I finished watching Clerks (the language was so bad, I had to wait until my roommate was gone before I watched it). I also obtained "True Jedi Status" on three more chapters, leaving only one chapter left in my LEGO Star Wars game to obtain that status on before I can unlock the "mystery level." I made my favorite food for lunch: mac'n cheese. I worked on my online simulated nation. I got a new bulb for my lava lamp between my doctor appointments. I also started reading "Silver Chair," one of the Chronicles of Narnia. In this story, Eustace and a girl named Jill escape from a rather liberal-sounding English school by travelling through a door that leads them onto a high cliff overlooking Narnia. Jill meets Aslan, who gives her instructions on what she and Eustace are to do while they are in Narnia. Their mission: find the lost prince, the only son of King Caspian.

Speaking of Caspian, I've heard that they plan to do a sequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe called Prince Caspian. For those who haven't read the book, that story takes place a year (England time) after the children have returned from Narnia. While waiting for train, the children are whisked away to Narnia, where 1,000 years (at least) have passed in Narnia since they left. They come to the aid of the title character when Caspian's uncle (a wicked man who has killed or driven off many of Narnia's talking animals and magical creatures) tries to keep him from his rightful claim to the throne of Narnia.

Hanging with Harry, finished the book.

Today, I hung out with my close friend Harry. We went to Target so I could use one of the giftcards I got for my birthday. I got The Brothers Grimm and the 3rd season of "X-Men: Evolution". He bought Ultimate Avengers 2, and we went back to his place to watch it after getting some KFC to go. After watching it (it was great, though someone died at the end that we didn't expect to see die), we went over to Wal-Mart (he had some shopping to do). I looked around for a few things myself, but I didn't see what I was looking for. He had some time to kill before he had to meet up with Liz, so I suggested we go to my place. I needed his help to finish the final chapter of my PS2 game, LEGO Star Wars. He agreed, and his superior jumping skills in the game got me to the final confrontation between Obi-Wan and Anakin. I defeated Anakin, and thus completed the final chapter of Episode 3. We did some free play for awhile, then he had to go. I played my game for awhile longer, then had some dinner and started watching a DVD one of my coworkers (not Tony) had loaned me: Clerks.

I finished King's Sacrifice yesterday. I was kinda bummed about the ending: the main villain from the second and third book died, but not before contributing to the deaths of some other significant characters in the book. Sagan went back to the Abbey he had grown up in, and Dion got crowned king after Robes killed himself and the Galactic Democracy fell in chaos. Tusk and Nola went off to live less exciting lives as a married couple. Dion looked like he was going to marry a woman from another Warlord's family instead of the woman he met and fell in love with on Bear Olefsky's home planet. In short, the ending was bittersweet: Dion gets to be king, but loses some allies and the woman he truly loves. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a woman wrote this book. They seem to love endings where people lose the ones they love most.

Popeye dream, better day, & the book.

Well, I had a long, weird dream about being Popeye (or at least a sailor with large forearms): I was travelling with a classy-looking blonde woman who looked like Ann from King Kong (2005 version). We were looking for treasure, and our trip wasn't exactly glamorous. We travelled in a dirty old sailing ship to an island. On the island, we got a motel room that had dirty walls with cheap-looking wallpaper. Ann wasn't happy with this, especially after she spotted a rat (or maybe a large bug?) in the room. I saw Bluto (Popeye's enemy from the cartoon) on the island, but he didn't make trouble for me when we saw each other. We left the motel the next day to head to a smaller, nearby island to seek the treasure we were looking for. Our supplies were loaded onto a ship that looked like a rotten wooden platform with a sailboat-style steering wheel and a loud motor. I knew Ann wasn't thrilled with this (I was skeptical myself), but I managed to get her on the platform-ship. I don't really remember anything in the dream after that.

In the real world, I was more alert at work than I had been the past few days. No thunder woke me early this morning (unlike the past two days), and I didn't bring extra Dew with me to work to drink at lunch. I found myself amused by the conversations of two of my coworkers, Tony and Debby. These two often get in verbal sparring matches, trading insults and laughing at each other. I have been speculating (privately) lately that perhaps they love or desire each other, but hide their true feeling from each other, their other coworkers, and possibly even themselves by their arguing and insulting of each other. I foolishly mentioned yesterday at work to them that I should be writing about their stuff in my blog (using code names instead of their actual names), and Debby demanded that I tell her what my code name for her was. I told her I couldn't remember (which was true, since I hadn't mentioned her in this blog before), and today she didn't mention it at all. I hope she has forgotten, since if she did read this she could probably guess the real identities of some of the people mentioned here....

As for the third Star of the Guardians book, I am nearly finished with it. Maigrey and her rag-tag army have found Sagan and sent the coordinets to Dion, but the king-to-be has decided to go to them with only Tusk and Nola instead of bringing the space fleets of those loyal to him. It seems like he might be planning to use the space-rotation bomb to destroy himself and Abdiel, but it might just be a ruse on his part. Sagan is in a trance-like state, and the Starlady is trying to find his consciousness inside the blackness of his mind via their mind-link. Abdiel has been sending messages to her telepathically, suggesting that he will poison her and Sagan so they will go on a madness-induced killing spree and be executed when they're finally caught by the authorities. I hope this series has something close to a happy ending, but it is hard to tell at this point.

Not the smoothest of days....

Late last night (or early this morning), I had this dream: I was at an amusement park. While I was in a wooden tower around sunset, a bright light shown through a window above me. I went outside and saw a silver saucer-shaped UFO descending to the ground nearby. A crowd had gathered, but I went right up to the UFO. A small hatch under the saucer opened, and a small, pale green alien (about the size of a cat) emerged. Concerned that the alien was part of an invasion force, I attacked it, pounding on it until it stopped moving. A second alien emerged, and I did the same to it. I tossed the dead aliens to someone in the crowd. I used my super strength (something I have in my dreams frequently) to tilt the saucer (it was the size of a car) in hopes of blocking the opening. I shouted, "You're not welcome here! Go back to whereever it is you came from! Nobody wants you here!" I spied a narrow silver cylinder extending from the open hatch. Thinking it was a weapon of some kind, I grabbed it and pulled it from the saucer. I wedged a softball under the saucer, tilting the UFO so that the ball was blocking the opening.

Before I get on with today's events, I should clear some things up. When I was younger, I believed in all sorts of paranormal phenomena--ghosts, ESP, and aliens. As I got older and more interested in my faith (Christianity), I gave serious thought to these phenomena and decided that ghosts and aliens were incompatible to my understanding of the real world. Further, I decided that if some non-human beings (aliens or possibly demononic spirits pretending to be aliens to mislead humans) were visiting Earth and doing what people claimed they were doing in the abductee stories, these beings should be regarded as enemies. I have had nightmares about the gray aliens (Grays, as they're often called) and various other aliens from movies and science fiction. As a result, I have decided (within the context of my fantasy and dream life, since I haven't encountered them in my "real" life) that I am at war with the Grays. If I see them in my dreams, then I attack them.

Speaking of my real life, I didn't get much sleep this weekend. On Saturday morning, I woke up a few times (I can't recall why). I got to bed about an hour later than I should have on Saturday night, then woke up very early Sunday morning due to thunder from a storm. I didn't get a nap in on either day, and Diana and I got back later than I would've liked on Sunday from our visit with Cosmo, Wanda, and Gwen. As a result, I had dinner later than I would've liked, and it threw off my schedule for the evening. Today at work, I bought TWO 20-ounce Mountain Dews to help me stay awake.

As for work today, it wasn't quite as hectic as I feared it would be. I was kind of down in the morning (besides my lack of sleep) because my pedometer got trashed on my way to work. It fell off my work bag and got crushed by a passing bus moments before I realized it had fallen off. Granted, the pedometer was free (part of my workplace's promotion of good health practices), and I have been frustrated with the thing reseting when I'm not looking or when I'm not deliberately pressing the reset button (which is on the front of the device). Still, I had hoped to make it to the end of this month before discarding it. We had some people off scheduled to be off of work this week, but nothing disasterous (that I'm aware of) happened in our area today. Aside from being late to my afternoon break and being tired half of the day, I didn't have too bad a day at work.

Just another day.

Well, things are pretty normal for me right now, other than perhaps my lack of success at being in bed by 9pm CT. Work is pretty routine. I have been doing some cleaning around the apartment this week, since I didn't have time to do it last week while preparing my bedroom for the ceiling repair work. My reading of King's Sacrifice is getting pretty exciting:

Sagan, having heard his father is alive and dying at the Abbey where he (the Warlord) grew up, has flown there alone in a ship with the messenger of his father's condition, Brother Fideles ("Fideles" means "Faithful"). After a trek through a hostile, cold, desert-like environment, they reached the Abbey. Inside, they observed some things that seemed fishy. Sure enough, it was a trap set by Abdiel, though Sagan's father was really on his deathbed. After Sagan (who brought no physical weapons with him since he was entering a holy place) was brutally whipped and beaten by the mind-dead, he was chained up inside the mortuary. Fideles was allowed to return to the Phoenix II to inform Lady Maigrey and the king-to-be (Dion) of Sagan's fate....