So far so good... I don't know what it is, but every Friday something crazy/stressful happens. I was worried because I had a doctor's appointment this morning (I HATE doctors). The appointment went well (no needles) and I was given a clean bill of health. This afternoon Emily and I finished a Photo Slide Show we've been working on. I'm going to deliver it in about half an hour. Tonight Emily's dad and step-mom are coming to town and having dinner with my family. There's something to worry about!

We had an interesting day yesterday, to say the least.

Emily was shopping at the mall with our friend Diane. They were in Anthropology trying on clothes, but when Diane called Emily from the adjacent dressing room, she didn't answer. Diane got an employee to open the door and found Emily on the floor having a seizure. The paramedics arrived a short while later and told Emily that she had to go to the hospital. Emily argued with them because she didn't even realize that she had passed out. When they asked where she lived, she gave them her old Burke, VA address. It took her the entire ride to the hospital to remember her age and current address.

Diane called me from the ambulance and I rushed down there. Emily was lying in bed in the ER when I arrived and was acting a bit loopy. Luckily she felt much better, but still didn't remember what had happened. The doctors performed the usual array of tests, while I spoke to Emily's mom, sister and Aunt. The general consensus was that it was caused by a medicine that Emily had just begun taking, which is known to cause seizures. It was scary as hell, but I'm glad to see that she's OK.

I don't know how many of my or Emily's family members actually read this, but if you do, we need your input. Please let me know if there are any specific cultural or religious traditions which must go into the wedding. You can e-mail me at bradzerivitz @ gmail.com (take out the spaces of course, I just put them in to thwart spammers)

Last night I got an e-mail about a new wholesale house on Realnet (a company that sells houses for investment purposes). Emily and I immediately went down there to check it out. It seemed like a great deal! We could buy it for $92,000 and sell it for $125,000 after repairs. We checked the numbers and found that the after repair value was a bit heigh (typical of houses from Realnet), but we were still interested in the deal. So, I called one of my mom's borrowers who specializes in that area. He checked it out for us and noticed that the square footage listed on Realnet was about 200 sqft more than what was listed on the property appraiser site. Abe and I went to the house this morning with a tape measure and checked it out for ourselves. Sure enough Realnet was wrong. I asked them about it and they said that there had been an addition. I didn't see any additions and we certainly didn't measure any extra square footage. So we tried to get in contact with the guy who actually buys the houses for Realnet and prepares the numbers, but he was hung-over and didn't show up for work. Abe and I put in a bid of $75,000. Later they called me and said that someone else had put in a full price offer. I hope for their sake they measured the house!

Later that afternoon I went driving around with Chuck and Bruce, two more of my mom's borrowers. They were in the middle of buying two houses worth over a million dollars each. The first one needed very little work, so Chuck was planning to move in. The second will be worth $800,000 more than they paid for it after they finish bringing it into the 21st century (currently it is firmly planted in the 1980s). They were very helpful, answering all of my questions and giving me some pointers.

Around 8:30 Abe and I went to the studio of the local talk radio station. The guys who do the new evening show recently relocated from Washington DC (where I use to listen to them). On Friday nights they have an open house, and let members of the community come on their show. It was great! Their intern "Chunks" needed to be punished for going through the suitcase (and looking at the panties) of El Jefe's cousin, who is visiting from Texas. So they took a pair of underwear, covered it with Icy Hot and hot-sauce and made him wear them. Then they gave him a wedgie and smacked him in the balls. He was screaming in pain for ten minutes before running to the bathroom, where he screamed for another 20 minutes. Hilarious!

Abe, Emily and I have been working furiously to find a house (to invest in, not live in). It's much harder than it seems. We've been working non stop for months with no luck. Actually we almost bought one in Sanford... We made an appointment to see the house on the same afternoon we found it, but it was gone before we even made the appointment. And Tuesday we were looking at two houses to buy at auction, but both auctions were canceled.

I finally finshed my cd! I've been working on it for about two years and it's finally done. A few weeks ago I decided that I didn't need to write any more songs (I had already written over 100 songs for this album). My challenge for the last few weeks has been mastering the cd. I know almost nothing about mastering, so it was quite a learning process. About a week ago I gave up and decided to bring it to the pros. So I went over to Greg Rike Productions, let them listen and to my surprise, they said that it was done... They couldn't do anything more to the music. I spent the last couple days tweaking some of the sounds and now I'm done!