Jen's Chrismas Present

Every year for Christmas I try and get Jen at least one neat or unique gift for fun. Last year it was the Lord of the Rings autographed poster. This years gift was a total fluke. Jen has been getting into talk radio lately. Some of our dinner conversations might include something Shawn Hannity or Glenn Beck said during their radio shows. Usually she catches portions of the programs taking William to school or going to work.
Here is where the fluke happened. A friend of mine, Gina, had started an account on Facebook and sent me an invite to start one as well. I wasn't going to since the myspace thing is pretty much a waste of time as well, but I decided to give it a try and see what the hub bub is. After setting up my account there is a thing where you can go to a Fort Wayne area group and it lists all of the stuff going on in the area and lets people post events. One of the things that I saw was a post from a kid trying to arrange a protest at a Glenn Beck book signing event. That's where I learned that Glenn was going to be at the Border's store in Fort Wayne on the Saturday after Thanksgiving signing his new book. If it wasn't for that anarchist trying to drum up trouble I would have never known about it since I don't listen to his show. The signing isn't on his website, but I call the store and confirm that he is going to be there and they also suggest buying the book beforehand and showing up at least an hour before the doors open. So I run out to the store and buy the book and set my alarm for 5:30am. The book signing is at 8:00am but I figure I had better get there at least by 6:00am since I struck out at Target on the Friday after thanksgiving due to getting to the store a little too late. I am trying to load the car with warm clothes since I know I will be outside for at least an hour or so and it's around 34 degrees outside, but I don't want Jen to see all the warm clothes that I am getting together in case she might figure something out. So I head out the door before 6:00. (I got smart and parked the car outside so I wouldn't wake up the Quinmores). As I arrive I see the line already out the front door and stretching halfway down the side of the building. I get out fully prepared with hats, gloves, turtleneck, sweatshirts, and a walkman to entertain myself. I actually have a nice conversation with the couple in front of me for a while. Also, I am lucky since the line at the side of the building also provides a wind break so it's not as brutal as the poor suckers in the front of the building. So I am sitting there listening to the radio and watching the line get longer and longer until it starts going out into the parking lot and almost to the Bob Evans. About 7:00 the line started to move. As I entered the store I was assigned a colored bracelet that essentially saved my place in line so I didn't have to stay in it, but most people still stayed in the line even after being told numerous times they didn't have to be. I wandered around the store for a little bit and then got in line myself just to make sure to have a spot, since he was only signing for an hour. Unfortunately no personalized autographs. Just his name and then next.We were all shown which page to open the book to and then we handed the book to one of three people who handed the book to each other before Glenn got it. The person before me stopped and said something to him which put me in a kind of awkward position of not knowing where to stand or what to do since they were trying to rush everyone through the line, but Glenn saw me and made sure to shake my hand and with me a Merry Christmas. I did the same with him and headed out the door.

So my fun present to Jen was an autographed Glenn Beck book which she has already read. Hopefully I can "luck" into stuff like this for future Christmas'.

By the way, I never saw any protesters......