Dave Gullett

Yesterday was election day; so I hope you got off your butt and made the long arduous journey to your local polling place. If not shame on you. No whining about government for you for the next year; you have no right to whine because you didn’t exercise your right to vote.

However,I did. I got off work, got cleaned up and trudged right across the street to the free will baptist fellowship hall (quite the journey).

Having previously voted (in this state) by absentee ballot I was a little disoriented, but some helpful folks got me straightened out. They found my name at the bottom of one of the pages in the list of voters.

However, when I went to sign the voter log I found out someone had already signed by my name. What on earth? There beside my real name near a copy of my real signature was a sloppy version of my name signed by someone other than me.

I tried to explain to the good people but they were confused. “Is this your name?” “Yes, but that’s not me” “What?””That’s me (showing license), see I live across the street, but THAT’s not my signature” “Hmm”

After a couple of minutes we figured it out. A guy who lives about a half mile away has the same first and last names and middle initial as me, only our middle names are different, and his comes second alphabetically. His real name was on the top of the next page, unsigned.

Way too weird. Explains the odd phonecalls I sometimes get though.

this morning with a headache…and I was thinking “Why on earth do I have a headache, I never get headaches, This stinks.” Whining comes easy in the morning before the fog clears.So I downed a handfull of ibuprofen and got on with things. Then it occurred to me that I have a friend who gets migraines so bad she pukes her guts inside out and can’t hardly walk, much less drive. And I have a friend who gets migraines that last days, weekes and sometimes months – so long that he will probably have to sit out the rest of this semester at home. And one of the guys I work with has headaches almost every day and often has migraines that level him, as well. And I wake up with a smidgen of a headache and I complain. Sometimes I am pathetic…

…where i am. That’s right. Of course. After all where else would I be but at the good ol’ coffee shop. Which I love…even though they have raised their prises slightly. That’s just life. This past weekend was wild…and long. It only took about 13 hours of driving to get to Orlando (thanks to loosely enforced speed limits). And after finding Mike’s house at Pioneers, and finding Mike and his family suprised to see us, there was a little catching up on life and a lot of catching up on sleep. Saturday morning Mike gave us a quick tour of the property (its very beautiful) and then we headed over for a brief stop at Wycliffe before heading south to Lauderdale. Once we got to Lauderdale (and unable to get ahold of missionary pastor Dave Toro) we caught up with my old friend Sarah. Sarah worked for me a couple years ago at Word of Life. Simply put, she is the best van driver ever. We went to church with her Saturday evening at Calvary Chapel. This as got to be the most incredible church I have ever been to. While it is large it is still focused on the Word and fellowship. It was just awesome. And the pastor, Bob Coy, is a excellent preacher. Sunday morning Sarah showed me around Calvary (she drives a tram ferrying people around the huge parking lot) while my grandma joined Dave at his English speaking church in south Lauderdale. Tha afternoon I met her at the Spainish church, Iglesia Bautista Emanuel, in the north part of the city. After the service we headed north for the ling ride home. That evening we stopped at D J Hayashi, the best asian seafood I have ever had. Period. If you are ever down that way check it out. Monday was spent cruising back up I-95, I-26, I-77, I-64 and good ol’ US52…and back to home in time for a good nights rest before work Tuesday… All in all it was a tiring but also refreshing trip south.

So its Thursday night and what better way to relax after a long hard day of labor than to cruise downtown and kick back at the Port City Cafe. Sipping on a cafe mocha and pondering the last few days and the next few to come. On Monday I officially started working out of the South Portsmouth office of Arrick’s Propane. That means (banjo strum) I now commute to Kentucky every morning. On the upside I take a route past Tim Horton’s. Its been good, though there were a couple of ten and twelve hour days. I am learning alot about what I do and enjoying both the change of pace and the change in scenery. And early tomorrow morning I head for a quick trip to Florida with my Grandma to return a trailer to my good friend Mike Murphy (in Orlando) and visit my old pal Sarah Milbourne (somewhere near Ft. Lauderdale, I think). And my grandma is going to visit her missionary friend Antonio who does live in Ft. Lauderdale. All in al it should be a fun weekend…. And if it all works out we’ll a though in a side trip to Wilmington to visit my brother Nick, who just moved there to take a new job.

Then its back to work on Tuesday.