Visiting time is coming to an end

I have 2 days left to get all my visiting in with Jesse. We haven't done much at all. Wooo hooo! The whole family has stayed in the living room most of the time and we read the Wall Street Journal, and point out good articles to each other. We have about 3 weeks worth we've been saving for this, so we have quite a few papers to go through. As soon as we leave, my mom will get rid of them and start saving for the next visit.

All the mornings and evenings, everyone gets together and plays Uno Attack or Ultimate Scrabble. My mom likes to watch us play more than she likes playing, so she keeps us well supplied with celery and hot chocolate, and tea and snacks.... It's WONDERFUL.

Jesse, Dad, and I did cut wood Saturday morning. Near the end of the woodcutting, everyone got inventive and tried different ways of cutting wood. My favorite alternate method was to put the axe behind my back, arch waaaaay back, until the axe head would almost reach the heels of my feet, and then swing forward with as much force as my arms and stomach could handle... I thought it was very effective, but as I found out later, my stomach muscles couldn't quite handle the strain. I had trouble sitting to get out of bed Sunday morning. I'm sure Jesse felt the same way, but neither of us will admit to it. :-)

It's time!

Jesse is coming here today! Even as I type, he should be driving here. He's going to come directly up to my apartment and then we'll all go back home together. "All" includes my mom too. HP finally sent the pieces we need to send the computer back, and she's driving up here to bring the computer while I try to find all the booklets that came with the computer.

As a parting note: Mom remembers hearing the chorus to "Seasons in the sun".

Oldies forever

I was listening to oldies music today, and I loved this one song that had a beautiful chorus.

We had joy we had fun,
We had seasons in the sun

A great sentiment. A toast to fun in the sun! (Not that it is EVER sunny during winter in W. PA)

I'm home!

The family Christmas gathering is over, and everyone has gone back to their homes. It was a little sparse this year, as more of the children grow up, some of them move away and don't usually make it back until a few days before Christmas. Depending how the schedule works out, we usually have more family come, but this year the gathering needed to be held earlier than normal.

So for everyone who didn’t come… have a happy year, and I’ll see you when you do come down!

Unfortunately, my brother couldn’t attend today either. :-( But I don’t despair! :-) I just have to wait one more week before I embarrass him by doing more pushups and curls than he can! AND I’ll tell everyone the results… if I do more :-P On more serious matters, it seems as though the Lord is leading and helping Jesse along with a strong, clear hand.. He is out of a job now. The rest of his work time is just using up his vacation time (3-4 days), so he won't be going back into the office. One of the guys had over a month of vacation time coming, so a little after my boss announced the layoffs, he took a vacation of more than a month! Jesse had one job interview, and he expects to get the job hands down… but even if he doesn’t, Jesse seems to be happy to put in resumes and do job interviews and wait for the Lord to pick out a job. Kudos for Jesse!

My apartment’s first floor is looking more like an office now. We have a NICE printer, tables set up, office chairs assembled, floor mats placed, a internet hub in place, and everything arranged as we think it will be long term. Now, we’re waiting for our computers to arrive, our monitors to be set up, and finals to be over (Not me personally, but the other two hires are looking forward to it. :-) )

I know I’ve been using the smiley faces heavily. They make a blog look so much more laid back, and since I’m home I thought they would be fitting. :-D

"Moving" along - ironic isn't it.

Tonight I head back home and spend the weekend with family. Our family's Christmas gathering is this Saturday, and there are always a lot of relatives attending. This weekend, we'll probably have another pool competition ( which I'll undoubtedly get eliminated in the first round again ), spread stories over the lunch and dinner tables, play in the snow, and swap some gifts and memento's back and forth. I am definitely looking forward to Saturday - I should also mention Saturday is my birthday!! I probably won't be getting any presents, but I know I'll be getting an extra helping, or two.... or three... of vanilla ice cream!

I've paid for and completed the sign up for classes next semester. I'm looking forward to both classes: Hebrew II and OOPLs (pronounced ooples). If you don't know what ooples is, then you can be classified as the sane part of the world. :-) I will give you a hint: it is a programming term.

I still need to see what the sign language club is doing next semester, but I think I won't have much time after work and school for extra-curricular activities, although fencing seems to be an intriguing option. I have to ask myself though, “When I move somewhere else, what good will fencing be?” I think the benefit of knowing some fencing is similar to the benefit of base-jumping. It doesn’t serve much practical purpose, but it is cool!

More Mania!

The apartment is two stories and a basement tall, with a pretty good heater. There is one flaw with the heating system... hot air rises! :-) While I was working in my bedroom, that was great. I just turned the heat all the way down and enjoyed the comfort of my bedroom. Now that the office equipment has arrived, I work on the first floor which is a little bit chilly for my taste. But don't worry Jesse! I have more layers of clothes on than usual.

There is also a decent internet connection in the house: 100 kB/s. While not roaring fast, it does save time when browsing the internet. What saves the most time is the fact that I don't need to drive into the college and use the library connection anymore.

For things other than the apartment I should mention that I now have a Grove City college library card! From what I can gather from the codes on the card, I am the 43rd Grove City resident to get a card, and according to their binary numbering system, they only have room for 64 community library cards.

And for a final tidbit of information: I have (or will soon, whenever I can fax the receipt) send my new computer back to get a refund. The day I got the computer back from the second repair, I turn it on... and it doesn't start up. It was the same old error, and it still wasn't fixed after two tries. I call HP to attempt to get a refund but I never managed to ask for it. As soon as I described my problem to the first person, she patched me through to a second. After I explained my problem to the second person, he patched me through to a case manager, who offered a new computer or a refund. I'm guessing they don't like a computer/customer who takes advantage of the repair policy and uses it a lot. :-D

Dan has moved into the apartment, I'm going home for this weekend for a Christmas party, and I'm going to add another year onto my age!

Apartment Mania

I have moved into my apartment! What made the move in final was getting an internet connection. Now, I don't have any practical reason for going home. :-( I guess I have to face up to the truth and just use the excuse, "I'm homesick!". :-)

But what about the apartment? It's smaller than my bedroom at home ( which wasn't large ), with almost no closet. It is only a 20 minute leisurely walk from the college, but in the winter, it's a shorter walk. All I need to do now is to sit in my room and to program. All the activities that I'm interested in joining won't start until next year, so things will be slow for a while.

And for you mom, "I'm homesick!".

'tis good to be back

After a two week break, blogging feels like a luxury. Oddly enough, even though I know I'll enjoy it when I sit down to blog, I don't look forward to blogging at all. It must be some twist of my nature to not look forward to something I'll enjoy, because blogging isn't the only area I procrastinate.

But enough about procrastination. I did have a somewhat valid excuse: I couldn't access the internet for a week. The phone lines had a lot of static, and it messed up the internet access. It is getting late and I'm rambling, so I'll limit my ramblings so I can get to bed soon. Thanksgiving week was wonderful.

My brother Jesse, his girlfriend Charlessa, and Nephew Jermemiah came to visit us for the weekend. It was a great Thanksgiving weekend. While Jesse was here, he caught me up on all the developments at work, and we chopped and loaded five or six loads of wood. We've had branches fall down, one onto our horse trailer (not a pretty sight) and one onto a shed and flatbed trailer. These braches weren't small either. I'm guessing a minimum of 7 feet around at their base, and they didn't get much smaller until close to the top. The main base of the tree is at least 10 feet around. I should mesure that! The small branches alone made an ash pile close to 2 feet tall when, and stayed hot enough to melt over an inch of snow 5 days later. Dad has spent several full days cutting the branches, and another two or three full days will be required to just chop and load and unload the rest of the tree. When Jesse and I were chopping wood, we worked for almost 2 hours (he had worked longer before I got out there), and I think we only split about half of one branch. The main base of the tree is too large for our chainsaw to cut, but the branches show an age over 130.

But the main fun was visiting with Jesse again. Jeremiah made his presence known the full time, and Margaret took advantage of his presense to play endlessly!!!! I don't think I could have lasted a quarter of the time she did. I think she likes being an Aunt. :-) We spent Thanksgiving day with family nearby and Charlessa met a little more of the clan.

As I said earlier - it was a great Thanksgiving week. Even bigger happenings have happened since then (I'm moving this week), but I'll leave that for another blog.

Working

Work seems to take up the whole day, and it is because I take so many breaks. When I am working by myself, the very presence of this computer is a distraction - I run error checks, virus checks, ad-aware checks ( I run a lot of checks ), I browse old pictures, play computer games (Not as many as my mom assumes :-), and stare out into my background and barely have brain activity. I thought I could move into another room and the very fact that things were different would help. They did! I no longer played around with my computer. Instead, everything else that was happening would distract me just as much.

I think there is only one solution, and it is a solution I am hesitant to take... wake up early. If I'm going to wake up early for something, I'm certainly not going to waste that time. Early hours always make me do more work. If I'm going to loose sleep, I would prefer it to be for something important, and NOT for me to do nothing by staring at my computer screen.

It's no fun to talk to people who talk in circles.

A day of disappointment

Sometimes there are days where nothing seems to go right. The day got started off badly with me waking up at 4:30, and being unable to go back to sleep for at least an hour. Second bad start, I slept in late, and didn't get up until 9:30, and didn't start work until 11. That means a minimum of finishing work at 7:00! That's pretty late especially since I haven't finished by 11. :-( Then, in the middle of the day, I find out that debate no longer needs my presence to survive! (Gasp! I bet that's a shocker to everyone! :-) ) To top it all off, I thought my brother was coming THIS week, and instead, he is coming next week. :-(

And to be honest... (And why not, this is MY blog!)... I'm fooling with you. This has actually been a very good day. (1) The early hours of the day were spent praying, so I consider it the best hours of today. (2) The late wakeup meant I got some much needed sleep ( A good nights sleep is invaluable), and I don't mind working late in the day. (3) I now have a lot more free time with less driving in to GCC. Although, I still have case briefs to drop off. And, I now have time to pursue other activities I've been looking forward to. (4) OK, well, having my brother delayed is a bad mark for the day, but at least it isn't permanent. That means that next week gets the big A+!

Actual bad things (not limited to today)
(1) My computer is acting up.
(2) My room is a mess.
(3) That's it!

More good things (not limited to today)
(1) There is a NCFCA debate tournament Saturday!
(2) Contra-dancing (one of the "other activities" )
(3) I don't have to send my computer in for repairs!
(4) I heard news about Rachel... Kudos! I like your job!

Repair Work

For the last few weeks, I've been having just a little pain on some of my teeth whenever I chew. I made an appointment 2 weeks ago to have them looked at and sure enough, there were some cavities. They were all concentrated on the side of one of my back teeth. The other teeth looked fine, so I guess the way I brush is the cause. However I brush, I must not hit that one tooth side. I also needed a worn out filling replaced, so I did that Tuesday. And it looks as though I may need my lower wisdom teeth pulled. If I keep them in, they will start to cause a lot of pain when I eat and massive headaches... I figured I should probably get them pulled before the migranes start to get too bad. :-)

In other news: MY MOM IS HOME!!! She's looking forward to tidying up the house. We do a decent job at keeping the house clean, but it needs a mom's touch to make it feel like home! My brother is coming back home for Thanksgiving weekend! He doesn't get home too often, and it is always GREAT when he does. I'm looking forward to rubbing in the fact that I.... hmmm.... I don't know of anything I can rub in. I'm sure I'll think of something. That's what brother's are for after all - to boast about our perceived advantages over each other :-D and to have a 'polite' ruckus until he admit's I'm right. :-P

A Good Laugh Now and Then

I've watched "Chicken Little" and I would have to say it is very cute and funny. I think what made it so funny was all the movie references it put in. Whoever watched it must have liked "Princess Diaries". I also watched "Shark Boy and Lava Girl", and while I'm sure most people would dislike the visual imagery used, I thought it was great. I actually cried through part of it. What does is say about me when I cry during a kids movie? Mentally unhinged? Sensitive? Loco?? I vote for being mentally unhinged.

Congrads on the debate team for putting in such a good showing this weekend! Everyone did wonderfully and made if a fun trip, and next time I'll bring my own camera. :-)

Longing to study

This insatiable urge to re-learn Hebrew has come over me again. At the moment, other than the alphabet, I only have Genesis 1:1 memorized in Hebrew, and I've forgotten most of what it means...

I never said I had learned Hebrew well! Just a bit to get me through what used to be
inconceivably different look of words in the word reference section. :-) Although, now, I wish I had taken one more class of Hebrew. Well... maybe I still could? It just takes a bit more dedication. Taking another class of Hebrew... something worth considering surely -- Learning the native language that God used to send a message of unconceivable glory to us!

And I've reconvinced myself to re-learn Hebrew... it looks like I could have stopped after the first sentence of the blog!

Hurrah for moms!

Not quite an ode, but hip-hip-horray for moms!

It's almost the end of day 4, but from what I hear, my mom is missing us terribly already. :-) That California sun can't quite compare to the chilly, cold, overcast, and drizzly days that Western PA has!

Today started slowly, with a little bit of work and then going to see Zorro with my dad. As my dad drove, I was asking him what he did and that started me recalling the long hours he would put in during heavy work periods. Dad would stop work very late, start very early, and that was without us to help and none of the jigs he's developed to help him get things done faster. Knowing now how much my dad likes to get a full nights sleep (we have similar needs in that area), it must have been very hard. As I was listening to a country song, I remembered this afternoon's conversation, and I hope when I get weary and the work gets tiring that I'll be like my dad and that I'll will keep pushing through with patience and courage until I'm through the tough spots.

I went ahead and put the lyrics below, but they don't give a complete story of what I was thinking at the time; so I'll translate my own version right now. :-) Here goes! "I said I wouldn't seek out or make trouble, but sometimes hard times come. So I'll keep fighting through the hard times, because I do remember what you taught me.

The actual lyrics:
I promised you, papa,
I walk away from trouble when I can.
Now please don’t think I’m weak,
I didn’t turn the other cheek,
And papa, I sure hope you understand:
Sometimes you gotta fight when you’re a man.

I love reading the news!

As I read the news and listen to the news, it seems as though the world and it's governments no longer make sense... nothing new under the sun... I can't say that the news has ever made much sense, but war has tended to clarify things for the last few years. After all, if a nation is willing to openly declare war and proceeds to do so, things get clear really fast. In the case of the US, nations align themselves on one side of the issue or the other and walking a middle line becomes wishy-washy and a sign of weakness instead of a sign of temperance...

There were some bright spots in the news. Yesterday, in the Wall Street Journal, there were some very interesting articles on the attitudes blacks and whites have adopted. (It is the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to leaver her bus seat.) My favorite article was one Mr.Steele laments the weakness that blacks and whites have chosen so that no one need feel ashamed.

The bottom line of the article: blacks know that the fault of poverty has been the widespread oppression of generations and it is up to the old oppressors to set things right or things can never be set right;Whites have taken the easy way out and have chosen to eradicate racism on their side and to take responsibility for black poverty as their payment for past sins. The problem with these stances is that blacks have become so integrated into the US system for so long with so comparatively little racism still left that we can no longer blame racism for keeping blacks in poverty - at this point, it is the failure of blacks as a whole to take responsibility that has left them in their current condition - and it is the fault of whites for helping prolonging that position and not holding themselves and others to a high standard of responsibility. As a white, to say blacks have not been responsible for the past one or two decades is to commit racism,and to say that poverty is no longer the fault of whites raises the same cry: "Racist!"

The article and my explanation of it is a little blunt, but I recalled when Bill Crosby was speaking to a group of parents... and kids (I'll have to look that up). He told the group he was speaking to that blacks had to take responsibility, and that they were failing to take responsibility at the moment for their children's education. Oh! For about a week, there was a small uproar, and Bill Crosby was blatantly called racist, insensitive, and ignorant of black's true plight. I kept seeing news blurbs on that topic for almost a month. On the flip side,try arguing that the government doesn't owe inner city students better education, more vouchers, more funding.... try arguing instead that it is up to the parents and students to get a good education. The same cry rings out: racist, insensitive, and ignorant of who are the most poorly educated. "It would hurt inner city schools", "City students don't have transportation" - with the sad assumption that "inner city" means blacks incapable of helping themselves, and that whites must lend money and other help.

Fortunately, It is true that I have some great friends who would argue for personal responsibility on everybody with little emphasis on what the government can do for "me me me", but outside a small circle - To argue that blacks and not the government should stop black poverty is to commit political hari-kari. Imagine that getting played over the TV networks and the outcry! By saying the government must take care of poverty (almost always intended to be 'black' poverty) is to degrade blacks into permanent second class dependent citizens, and to put on the pedestal all of the years of horrendous failings of the government( whether we intend to or not, viewed as the elite of the white culture). And all those failings accomplish us not feeling ashamed of our role toward the other race: blacks don't need to feel responsible for their own failings/poverty ("because it's not their fault" ), and whites don't have to feel responsible for their abysmal failings ("We're throwing money at the problem. We're doing all we can").

The problems that personal responsibility for everyone would bring to the surface are numerous, but America has chosen to live with far more problems when they choose the easy way out because it is comfortable and we are used to it.

Final thought on the article... there was a lot of rhetoric, without much proof of his point... I'm not sure I was convinced that black poverty can mostly be explained by a whole group of people abdicating responsibility. It doesn't seem to leave room for the "one person can make a difference" idea (which I agree with). The main point of the article is the part I already agreed with, that government can't lift people out of poverty (black or white) unless the people themselves make an effort. An effort is no guarantee of success, but it puts the odds more in your favor.

In other news, the Sunnis have decided to participate more in elections(apparently not participating hurt their political representation. :-) )
In other news, Saddam Hussein's lawyers have boycotted until the get better protection. They have 10 demands before they come back. Most of them seem reasonable - especially the better protection so they don't die - but 15 bodyguards per lawyer? It seems a little much.

Aches and pains

I guess this is what it means to be OLD. As soon as you turn 21, it's all downhill and I've got a headstart!

I think I need to make a chiropractor appointment. I think it's all my sitting time while programming that making my lumbar hurt so much. When I was helping my dad this summer, I would always be standing, bending, moving, and doing something active that was not sitting down. Now that I'm doing a lot of sitting, my poor posture is coming back to haunt me. The last 4 years or so of high school, I did a lot of ABeka video classes, and everytime the teacher would tell a student to sit up straight, I would smile to myself and be just a bit smug about the fact that I didn't have to sit up and was in a very comfortable chair or glider. A sore lower back takes away some of the smugness, but not much. :-)

I have the weekend free, and I'm trying to think of something special to do Sunday. I was thinking rapelling, but it's not too much fun by myself... I could stay at the house and clean up ALL day like last Sunday (Which was great)... or I coudl get out "In His Steps" and read it again. I'm leaning towards staying home and cleaning up. It was a lot of fun to help my mom putsy around the house and straighten everything up and rearrange rooms, but I'll probably be sent outside to have fun weedeating! "In His Steps" is a good option, but I read that one one... or two months ago and I may wait a little longer before re-reading it. Rapelling just isn't fun by mytself... hmmmm.... or I could make a few calls. See what I turn up? :-) I know Jacqueline would love to come if there isn't schoolwork still to do, and so would Courtney, Dan, Mark, Steve,... but everyone else is busy I think. It's worth a try! It's time to pull a Holly!

Parting note to brother Jesse: 1152x864 - nice screen resolution. You didn't tell me how nice it was when I was visiting! You also might want to put a little more security on what cookies can be put one your computer. ::evil grin::

Travelling Tale

I got online, checked mail, organized that mail, prepared to send some mail, and by the time I'm finished it's too late to post a lengthy blog. :-(

Not that there is too much to say. On the speech and debater front, GCC broke a few students at the recent tournament, so we know some more people will be going to nationals. I got to judge 4 rounds. I didn't feel too confident until the last round, finals of impromptu! That one was rather easy to judge because I've competed and watched so many others do it.

My new computer is up and working now. I finally managed to transfer a few of my E-mails and programs to my new computer so I hope to fully transfer everything by the end of this week.

Tomorrow morning, my mom leaves yet again for Michigan. She made one trip last week to breed one of my sister's dogs, and she's going tomorrow to pick up the dog. My sister has/will go along on both trips, but she has the added traveling of going to see my brother and nephew this weekend - a six hour drive one way. Both she, my mom, and my dad are ready to stay home for a while.

That's it for now. I can tell I've been programming to much when I start to end sentences with a ';'.

Another blog from a motel

Again, I sit in the dark, typing my blog, alone... while everyone else in my room sleeps. Although if I were to be completely honest, the light has been dimmed, and my mom and dad aren't quite asleep yet, but it sounds so much more... dramatic - if I'm left alone... in the dark... reaching out to connect to the world in the only method left to me - the World Wide Web. It's not accurate, but it adds a small flair to an otherwise unassuming blog.

How boring you ask?

Work is progressing slowly - it's just that I only had 2 days to get 40 hours of work done. Fortunately, my boss is fairly lenient and lets me do work on the weekends so I'm hoping to get the rest of the week's work done, but I am unsure how I should order my week. I know that I am ordering this week so that I am working on the Sabath, but should I? It's something to take to the Lord in prayer.

I must, before I go too far afield in my ramblings, give my regrets to the debate group. I didn't get the debate plans looked over and critiqued, but don't worry! Before I show up next week, I'll get the debate plans back to you.

Now for the rambling part:
I'm starting the process of looking for apartments. I'm trying to find possible housing starting December or January, so I'll be closer to work. My parents made a wonderful effort in raising me and managed to get me to all sorts of activities (gymnastics and piano being my favorite: I can still do a giant, but I don't have ANY music memorized), but now that I'm left to my own devices, without quick access to activities at college, I've floundered in the interesting hobbies category. At the moment, I wouldn't blame anyone who said my life was 'boring'! :-) Now that I'm moving to a slightly larger town, I hope to get involved in some more activities. (dance partner anyone?)

The move is still up in the air and of has a dubious probability, but I think the time has come. I just pray that God would give me the wisdom to listen to him through all of this, in good times, and in the hard time where it is hard to stay connected to friends and family.

A cute visitor

Here the promised post of pictures when Jesse and Jeremiah visited!



Awww.




In this picture, Jeremiah is teaching my dad how to play guitar. :-)




What better to do on a bright, sunny day than ride a horse!
"Aunt Margaret's pretty good, but wait until I'm alone. I'll show her how fast Runner can run!"

"Oh no! What will I do??"

"Look Ma! I'm winning!"



Jeremiah enjoyed the tractor until it started up. I think the noise scared him. As soon as he jumped off, he wanted to get back on. Once he was on, he looked scared again. Go figure!

A successful day

What makes a day a good day?

Is it the amount of work that I do? No. I can get a lot of work done, jobs finished, but still consider the day a bad day.

Is it the people I get to spend the day with? That's part of it, but even with the greatest of people, bad days happen.

Is it my mindset? This is closer. At the end of a day, I can look back and say it was a good day.

The last point is the best answer I think. Our attitude towards life, our satisfaction from living does not come from what we have, but from Who we have.
"but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night."

The next blog will have some cute pictures from when Jeremiah and Jesse visited. I was looking over some old folders on my desktop, and I realized I had inadvertantly copied the pictures to my computer. Jeremiah's so cute!

Time to sit, relax, and sleep - for a bit

My first week where I've put in a lot of programming time is finished. Tomorrow, I start on week two. Fortunately for me, it's still new, exciting, interesting, and I hope it will stay that way for a long time - so cheers! To an interesting life! (Although I will admit programming isn't edge-of-your-seat exciting).

The third and final week of Yankee Peddler has passed. After a wet teardown of our booth, a long drive home, and a good subway stop, I got home about 3:15, sat down and spent 45 minutes just reading the Wall Street Journal. I didn't check E-mail, turn on my laptop, vaccuum, or do anything else other than read. After all, with the electric out from the heavy storm Sunday night/Monday morning, there wasn't much else to do!

So much excitement!

Whahoooo! Tonight was the first GCC speech meeting I've attended since graduating. I got to see my old teammates and see a lot of potential new competitors. It look like it will be a very good year for the speech team. The team advisors are heavily involved and trying to make the team a success, and the captains of the speech categories are the cream of the crop - it's going to be a great year! But that's only 1/4 of my excitement!

But as exciting as that is there is still another 1/4 of excitement about to be announced....... I have a job! A fairly serious job from what I understand. I'm programming for a company in Florida, upgrading their system from dos and C to MFC and c++. It look like it will be a very long, involved job. At the moment, I'm the first person hired to start the job, and it looks like I'll be working alone by myself for a few weeks, or even a month or two! I know someone is slated to start in December, so I'll have a teammate then, but I'll be the head programmer for a new branch office in Grove City.

I am in the enviable position of choosing my own working hours, working from home, having a free hand in how I do what I'm supposed to do, and possibly managing a large project.

I will have to admit though, that most of this is only because the Florida business hasn't opened up a business or hired other programmers. When a new office opens up and other workers come, I won't work from home, I'll have less freedom, and be more constrained in my working hours - but what do you expect - usually only high powered programmers have the freedom I have - if only for a month!

Can you tell I'm excited! I get to do what I want (though limited) and still have a job that is just what I've been looking for!

Oops. It's gotten late on me. The other 1/2 of my excitement? Having a family to support me as I grow through life and friends I can trust during my journey! Praise the Lord for all four fourths of happiness he has given me!

Home sweet home

Home is where you can find rest. I've spent a lot of my evenings this week in motel rooms or driving, and yet I find that I'm still rested and relaxed. A new environment never seems to be the same as home, but because I'm spending a lot of time with my dad I find it's been a good week.

At college, I'm occassionally invited to play games with some friends. Tonight is one of those nights and I'm sorry to miss visiting friends, but as I look at my mom and dad sleeping, I realize I have some very good friends right here.

Have a great weekend y'all.

Today was yet another good day while Jesse and Jeremiah are visiting. It started off with an early morning when Jesse, Margaret, and Jeremiah all made a little bit of noise... that and I had kicked the covers off so I was freezing! I've reinforced the covers so the mere weight should make it difficult to kick the covers off - but back to today's visit. When we went to church, everything went pretty well. Jeremiah was quiet, the sermon was nice, and the songs were moving. One thing that was slightly different is that the preacher had everyone move into the left row of pews. It was more crowded that way, but it let the congregation know they should listen.

After we got home, Jesse prepared food for the Memorial Day gathering at our relatives house. Jesse and Jeremiah went to the fishing competition before hand, and guess what! Jeremiah caught three fish by himself. Not quite 3 years old and he reeled them into shore (Although Jesse helped when it got really close to the pond edge). After that, my dad and I went to our relative's house and started eating and talking. They have a trampoline, and it was neat to see all of the children bouncing up and down doing slam dunks on a rim that was set up. After dinner, we did the traditional volleyball games, but we made a switch this year. We played some whiffleball beforehand. The final score was 8-7, we won!

Two of of three games of volleyball: 2-0. We lost! Quite badley too. Quickly moving on....or not. I just saw the time! It's past my bedtime.

Time to Rumble!

The question I must ask myself is: How many times to do I have to retype this blog!? I've been doing some seasonal maintenance on my computer. I removed old programs, erased old files, and just rethought what I wanted to keep on my computer. This time something went wrong. Very wrong. My browsers, Firefox and explorer, kept forgetting to stay open. But not this time.... There will be no pause, no retreat, no discussion of compromise until this blog is completed and the programs correctly working. No stone shall be left unturned, no food shall be consumed, and no sleep shall be taken.... Nevermind. I value a good nights sleep more than that!

Yesterday I had a pretty good day visiting college friends. I spent over 12 hours at GCC - talking to professors, visiting with commuters, bowling, playing racquetball, talking, going to the organizational fair, playing games with students, and watching a movie during intervis. A very successful and eye-opening day.

But after taking it so easy yesterday, I wanted to make up for lost time today. I cleaned the house, I stayed moderately busy working on papers, and I made sure to spend time blogging, but most of all, I enjoyed visiting my nephew. My brother came up and brought Jeremiah with him! It's been a while since I've had a good visit with either of them and I'm already expecting a very good weekend.

Hurricane Katrina has brought up some major weaknesses in the oil industry. I had the opportunity to work at a company that was somewhat involved in the oil business, and I learned from them and extemp research that the US is operating at full capacity: even if we shipped in more oil we wouldn't have the refining capability to handle the new resources. I keep an open eye out for sudden gasoline price changes, and soon afterwards, I usually read that a oil refinery somewhere in the US stopped or started working again. Few people seem to know how closely the price of oil is linked to our refining capability. When I heard that Katrina had stopped 10 refineries from refining oil, I knew a severe price rise was coming. When my sister got home from working two nights later, she told me prices has jumped almost a dollar. I'm just glad that raising gas prices seem to have little effect on the economy - not that it helps when I'm pumping gas as seeing the prices shoot up!

I still want to do a little more research into MFC... I need to stay current if I'm to get a good job.

Rain... rain... rain...

Cooler, wet weather is quite unusual for this time of the year. If the rain keeps up, I may have to mow the lawn a few more times this year. Usually, by the time September rolls around, the grass is usually too scortched from the August sun to do much growing. This year, I heard some techniques for mowing that keeps the grass from getting scortched as much. That, added with the rain means the growing season will be a little longer. At least my dad's flowers are doing well. He usually has to water them every few days, and it looks like this week he will be getting a break!

After I ran some errands yesterday, I went to the library and checked out a few books. I've always been interested in Aikido, Judo, and Chi because they seem... cool looking, especially when I'm not the one being thrown over a shoulder. Whatever the reason, I've grabbed a beginners book on Tai-Chi and should be a grand master by this time tomorrow.

Wherever I go, I can now safely say, "Evildoers beware!"

'Tis Well

Things are on the up and up... I've been slightly put out the last few days and it was just me depressing myself. Talking with friends, family, getting a little attitude ajustment and a good church service (reverse the order) - and the world looks much brighter!

Another reason the world looks bright is that job offers are slowly accumulating (and I do mean slowly!). That - along with some discussions of where I'll be staying and what I'll do is moving the whole idea of entering the workforce close to the forefront of my brain.

And as a parting note - I don't spill check my clogs. I think mistypins and bad spiling add charcter to a blcg. But mistyping in a title is terrible etiquette! :-P

Here I go again

I've decided that there is little that is as disappointing as writing a blog and then losing it. Here's the layout: Wednesday evening; alone at the computer; happily typing a blog for the last half hour. All of a sudden I realize "Shazzammm! I've just written a great blog!!!". Faster than lightning I move my mouse to "Publish", I hit the left mouse button, and then wait an eternity for the screen to pop up and say, "Error 404. Web's can not be found". I take out a shotgun, aim it at the computer... Maybe not - but that is what I was thinking.

Life will move on I guess, and for me, the last two days have been very exciting. Apparently, the end of the week and the beginning of next week is going to be very exciting for quite a few people. ;-)

Getting back on track, I went to Erie Thursday and Friday and visited with my Uncle Gary. He took us fishing Friday morning and we trilled for a few hours, saw a few whoppers, got a few nibbles, and headed back to shore - it was great!! I always enjoyed the ocean. After that, I got to go golf 18 holes. All I can say about that is I only lost 4 or 5 balls into water hazards. If you want any more information you must ask me personally and awaken horrible memories of an unapproachable island, surrounded by dark water, packed with weeks, and doubtlessly holding countless golf balls hostage. It was a BLAST!! I never knew golfing could be so much fun.

Best of luck to everyone. Hope the move goes well. :-)

Trial by Fire

AFF: Crushing defeat is all the options available to those who attempt to deny my win!
NEG: The empirical evidence doesn't support that claim... in fact... it show just the opp...
AFF: Hold on! This is MY Cross-X time... no need to start rambling.

Maybe I'm no pro at affirmative, but I still enjoy doing debate research. That's what I should be doing at the moment, but I thought, "I've been doing this 20 minutes already, time for a 'brief' break." I spent the first few minutes alternately laughing and being scared at the freshmen GCC pictures, before I thought to move on to something more worthwhile like blogging.

So tallyho! My break has gone on long enough. I need to get back to research. I'm one of 4 people doing an exhibition debate Monday and I want to put my best foot forward. Which means little time for blogging or E-mailing. Don't worry though, the E-mail shall get through (eventually) and my blogs, though short, shall keep on coming!

Should I upgrade my software?

I've been having serious questions about upgrading my mom's computer. Should I take the chance of losing old data and will I get better functionality? I don't know...

Fortunately, when my brother was in college, he found a clear and consice lists of the PROS AND CONS OF SOFTWARE UPGRADING. Scan the list and tell me what you think.

On other fronts, I wanted to finish up a blog on Ireland and get an E-mail finished. After the teasing I subjected some people to, two blogs back, I feel I should have gotten some E-mails out but procrastination strikes again. It's not quite that bad actually, I spent most of the day in town doing errands and preparing for the debate Monday and when I got back I started the procrastination.

If people have been trying to contact me by IM, I apologize for failing to be on IM a lot. I must say I was pretty happy when I got online a few days ago and some people IM'ed me, even people I haven't IM'ed before (The "Biker" strikes again. Thanks for the info. :-) )

I did manage to contact some people I should have contacted just before August. It was quite a pick up to talk. Thanks!

I'm back! :-D

Can you blame me for being happy! As much as I love Ireland, it really doesn't compare to Pennsylvania and the people I find here (and elsewhere). ::Sniffle:: I have great friends ::sniffle:: OK. Emotional moment over. :-)

Actually, I've been back since Sunday night, but I've been busy (and procrastinating), that I put off blogging. Can you forgive me? If you want to know a lot of the nitty-gritty details, you can go look at Jesse's blog. He put a lot of detail. I did almost everything he did and all the pictures he puts up are pictures I snapped. There is one thing that I did a lot of that Jesse missed - shopping. I've put in more shopping time in Ireland than I have the rest of my life. To be fair, I was chauffeuring 7 young ladies around Killarny for several days and I mostly stood outside of shops and watched, but I still count that as shopping. In those 20-30 hours of shopping (that's not walking time, that is time actually spent in stores (or outside as the case was for me)) I came home with only two souveniers, the most expensive of which is a 4 euro songbook of Irish songs. They are all about a young boy going off to war or a lady pining away for a lost love - almost all of them are depressing.

What should I say, there is still so much more, but hold on for the next installment with "David's Ireland - the lost continent". The next installment includes David's infamous pub-hopping stories.

Hello from the Kingdom of Kerry

I have internet access! the caps lock is hard to hit, so I won't be able to capitalize much, and the keyboard is slightly different, so don't look to hard at misspellings. I'm also typing fast since I have to pay for internet access, but I planned what to type beforehand so I shouldn't take to long.

At the moment I am in Ireland! Day... 5 or 6... or 4... of the trip. I'm on Irish time and don't keep track of time and the passage of days well. The weather has been great this whole trip. After leaving 80-100 degree weather, this 60 degree weather is nice. The people who were running the Irish clogging workshop said this was warm, but the dancers from VA said it was great and they loved getting out of 100 degree weather (current temp in VA). The sun does occassionaly peek out, although rare. It's only rained twice so far for a few hours each so that's been nice too.

At the moment, I'm a big Kerry fan, the Kingdom of kerry, in Souther Ireland. I can't help but enjoy everything and everyone walking by. It is a big tourist attraction and there are a lot of shops to chauffeur (sp) people in and out of. (A new record for me! I managed to end a sentence with 3 prepositions!) Today, I'm only in charge of chauffeuring two people: Katie and my sister Katie. There are three people on this trip named Katie. It is a little hard getting in contact with home, and the days are long and busy, so I am already looking forward to getting home and just relaxing. Helping my dad is only a full day... it doesn't start very early and end at 11:00 like it does here.

That is about all my time for now... I'm need to get off so I don't kick into the next level of internet use and the next payment scheme. To everyone who I haven't been keeping in contact with - sorry, and I'll try to do extra when I get home. For those who haven't been keeping in contact with me (You know who you are), make sure to E-mail!

I didn't know what I asked for!

( An Audrey Hepburn look alike asked me these questions )

Okay "MacDaddy" (haha) here's your interview:
1.) what was the awesomest place you ever traveled to and what made it so awesome?
That's a tough one. I've gone to a few neat places. I would say Sea World in California would be the neatest. It was just my mom and I. I was the off season so there were no crowds and we walked from cool show to cool show. As far as nature goes, the top of flat iron in Arizona was the best. My family usually spent a whole day hiking to the top, having a nice picnic (lots of oranges. My grandma grows them.), and walking back down.

2.) what is your favorite knock-knock joke? I don't know many knock-knock jokes...
Knock Knock.
"Who's there"
Banana.... I give up. I can't even remember a good knock-knock joke. Do they exist?

3.) who said the most encouraging thing ever to you and what did they say?
My family is the biggest encouragement I have, but other than my family I would have to say SGA at school gave the nicest encouragement. One day, we took the time to write down something nice :-) about everyone else. All the comments for one person was put on one paper and given to that person. I'm not very social, so all of my comments were very general, except for one person, the president of SGA. I don't remember what the comments were, but I still remember that he took the trouble to get to know me and it showed when he wrote his notes to me.

4.) if you could switch the color of the ocean to whatever you wanted, what would you choose?
Light green. I realize it is close to the color of the current ocean, but I always thought a lighter color would look nice.

5.) what's the best thing to have for breakfast when you've pulled an all-nighter?
A huge bowl of cold cereal with milk. Sugar, raisins, and more sugar can give a quick boost.

6.) YOU GET A BONUS QUESTION! haha, what are your plans for the soon-coming future? if school, what for? if something else, why? etc....
So much to say and so little space... After I finish helping my dad with craft shows this summer, I plan on getting a job (surprise!). There are also groups around my area and at college that I would like to keep working with. Oh... The pain of being an alumni!! (But I hear area residents get a special deal for college classes?!!) Anyway, that's what I plan on doing. It seems quite bland, but the job and groups are only activities. What makes the job and activities worthwhile is the people and the opportunity to make a different for the Lord.

The fine print:1. Leave me a comment saying, 'Interview me'.2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.3. Only respond if you are willing to answer ANY question that is asked of you4. Update your Xanga (or blogger) with the answers to the questions.5. Include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. 6 When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions

Time flies

Can it be?! Yes. I'm going to Ireland in a week and two days! If you can't tell, I'm looking forward to the trip quit a bit. I found out today that we'll be touring the south-west corner of Ireland. At the moment, the only town I can remember that we visit is Killarny. The schedule looks like we'll go and see something new everyday. Unfortunately, my mom won't see those sights. She has decided that she can't go to Ireland with a broken leg. Two and a half weeks (when she made the final decision) was just not enough time for the leg to heal enough to handle steps without any assistance. One good result of my mom not being able to go is that someone else will be able to take her place. My mom still has to pay for the non-refundable, non-transferable ticket, but because the group has an open spot at the various places we'll be staying, we can bring a person who would not have been able to go.

And now for another time related topic: watches! I bought a new watch yesterday. I'm pretty rough on watches and I got the last watch wet (still works, just discolored) and I broke the wristband. For anyone who has tried to buy a wristband by itself, it is just the same as a cheap watch. Since I only buy cheap watches (I'm far too rough with them), I bought a plain watch with a black face and a silver wristband. I almost got a sports watch which had a lot of functions such as alarm clocks, multiple timers, and a day of the week display; but the extra features added onto the thickness of a watch, and the sports watches were just to bulky to comfortably wear... although I miss the glow-light feature of a digital display. :-(

While at the craft show this weekend, the sun was out in full force, and I got quit sunburned. I've done pretty well this year staying out of the sun during heavy UV time. I didn't have much of an option this week, so as I look down at my (white) foot, I see the start of a red coloration, clearly delineated where I had my sock. My neck is even worse, but when I looked at my arms I was and am a little confused. The sunburn line is clearly marked, but it comes half way up my bicep on my right arm but only two inches past my elbow on my left. I may have to go to a chiropractor. The only answer I can think of is that I stand crooked, and I hope it is because my back is out of alignment and not because I naturally stand that way! :-)

Here and gone again

Now that the correct weekend for the craft show has come up, I'll be leaving Friday morning. We'll leave about 12:00 and I'll guess it will be a five hour drive, so I'll be gone until Monday afternoon.

I got back from a church prayer meeting about 9:30. It was a very open meeting. We're all praying together to find out the direction of our church. We're moving in the direction of joining the Sovereign Mercy Ministry. Currently, our church is independent and our elders feel that joining another group would knit us closer together as a Christian community, gather support in our fight to follow Christ's teachings, and act as a support to know that our church is part of a larger organization with sister churches all over the world.

I read over my last post and caught a few grammar and spelling errors and I was going to correct them, but I decided, "Nah." Little errors like that add character to posts so I'll let them slide. (All except for very embarrassing misstatements. I've changed a few of those)

there and back again

Remember my last post? Let me narrow that down a little: do you remember something in my last post about going to a craft show this weekend? If you do, then I get to tell you that it was one big hoax. :-D on us! We've just driven 8 hours (It's a 4 hour trip without stops), and we get to the motel about 6:00 and we walk in to the office and talk to the manager and he asks, "Are you here for the Canalfest?".... One thing leads to another, and we find out that the Canalfest isn't until next week!

Things worked out well anyway. We managed to leave one of the gas guzzling vehicles at the motel for the week, and we'll just go next week. On another note, my family is having a hard time right now, so I would appresiate your prayers for a safe and close family. So eprayer for guidance in each one of our lives would be helpful. Thanks! and I'm going to be the earliest I have in several weeks!

Ah, the fun of craft shows!

Can it be! Yes, I go to yet another craft show. In case you think this is the normal, run-of-the-mill craft show, think again! I'm going to New York (the state, not the city) to a show that has over 300 craft booths. OK, it's not that fantastic, but I do get to travel quite a bit when going to craft shows.

And because I'm going to be driving for a few hours tomorrow, I plan on an early night. An early night will also be nice so I can catch up on sleep from driving my grandma to the airport at 3:00 this morning. Yes. It's true. :-( She is home now and I won't see her for another year.

On a happier note, I think my family (extended family included) has started to plan the next family reunion. Wherever it is, I'm sure it will be a blast. Our last reunion lasted about a week and was a blast. I think it was the biggest family group we've had in a long time. A lot of the fun of the family reunion was putting all the pictures of the reunion into a scrap-book. We were a motley crew!

A little debate work

You may be telling yourself, "Isn't it too early to think about debate?" or "Get a life!" I would have to say that you are probably right to say both, but at the moment I don't have much else to occupy my time. Finishing work at 8:30 doesn't give much time to do anything major. Fortunately, having the schedule pretty open with several hour breaks during the day is very nice, but I digress. I've been keeping a close tab on the NFA LD topic, and saw that they have refined the topic somewhat. The final topic will be posted at the NFA-LD website on August 1st - Mark your calendars! If you enjoy economics and foreign trade policy, I think you'll like this topic. I'm guessing that our heavy republican and libertarian team will be a negative force to recon with! :-)

On other fronts I'll mention that my book reading has regressed into more Redwall books. But not to worry, I at least managed to finish the "Swiss Family Robinson" and start on another book on Psalms before regressing. With perseverance, speed, and an iron will I should be able to finish the Redwall books and get back on track soon! Wish me luck!

A small note

I finally figured out how to get my picture in my profile and not just as a blog. The blog with just my face was an accident, but I'll use it to get my picture in the corner until I figure out something better.

By the way, I like google's program "Picasa2". It is a free photo organizer and I needed one. It works pretty well, but I haven't had many to compare it with.

David's head 

People are the important part.

I watched a "Monk" today, and at the end I loved what he said about getting over an addiction he had.

Natalie: "How did you walk away?"
Monk: "I had you."

Family visit

Cutting success! I got a few free hours to do weed-eating. I finished when it was too dark to see about 9:45. I was covered in quite a pile of weed bits, but flattening a bushy hillside was worth every piece of dirt. If I have another 2 hours tomorrow I may be able to finish the weed-eating. Unfortunately, working during the day requires me to wear sweatpants, a long sleeve shirt, gloves, and a huge hat so I don’t get sunburned. It would be a luxury if I actually tanned instead of burning every time the sun glared down on me. Thinking about it, I do tan. I just keep getting sunburns where I tan. Go figure!

About two weeks ago I got so busy with yard-work (and some TV with my mom), that I completely forgot the debate meeting with Sara. I plan to be in prompt attendance this week, but I will only have three days to get homework done. I only have Friday night free to do the research, so I’m not sure when I’ll get the homework done, but I’m sure it will get done…?

What is keeping me so busy is mult-pronged, but the main prong is having relatives here for a visit! My Uncle JD, wife, sons, and a son's girlfriend are in Pennsylvania for a visit. It’s only for one night, but I’m looking forward to it. I only got to see them for a few hours when I went to California, and I was just starting to get into the conversation when I had to leave for my Aunt’s house.

blogs take work!

I learned today that Rachel has a job editing a blog for a Christian ministry. That sounds like a lot of work. I know how much work it is to blog regularly and to keep up with multiple posts, responses to comments, making sure links work, and everything needed to upkeep a major blog. I’m wishing you the best Rachel!

As I write this, everyone else except my sisters is asleep and the whole house is quiet except for some fans, air conditioners, dogs panting, and pups squealing. The silence gives a guy some room to think… what if? I had seen the most recent version of “The Time Machine”, and the bad guy told the main character (name?) that he had a most serious affliction – he always wanted to know, “What if?” I think it’s pretty good to occasionally wonder, “What if?” I can’t say that my life is falling to pieces right now (although speeding time forward a few months would help) so wondering “What if?” gives mostly sad answers.

Right now, I’m so happy to hear my mom and dad breathing, to see the chair that my Uncle brought for my Grandmother, and smell the pies that friends brought for my dad. I like to remember all of the blessings that I’ve been given and one of the ways I do that is through two rings I wear constantly (“two!” you say. “I’ve only seen one!?”), and although I do occasionally take them off when fidgeting, they stay as a reminder of what I should do in the present. My main guide to what I should do is something I’ve recently started doing more – King David’s discipline – hiding the Word of God in my heart. It is a slow process. I am a very slow memorizer and I often forget, but that is part of the struggle we all have: to remember what we have learned and act upon it.

For all the people who have been blogging - great blogs! I read them within 10 minutes of getting home. :-D

Funny picture and my mom's condition

Normally I just launch into odd subjects with no warning but I thought I would alert you this time. I was browsing through the pictures from nationals and ran across this picture from the same memory card. Here is a picture of Belle, Lucy and puppies. Guess which is the mother of the puppies. (Belle is on the left and Lucy on the right).

Today was busy as always, but it didn't start getting busy until after 10:00 so that was nice. I guess I should also mention that I stopped around 5:00, so today was an easy day. My dad and I are completely loaded up for Twin Lakes and we'll be off by 8 or 9 tomorrow morning. Since the days have been warm lately, we're going to work in the morning, go to the motel for the afternoon, and back to work in the evening. I probably won't have any internet access in the motel, so yall have to suffer from lack of my wonderful blog while I'm away. Don't worry too much, the disease of lack-a-blog only lasts for a week.

I’m feeling a little happy this evening and I can’t quite pin down why. I just finished watching “Maverick”. It’s a bit coarse and has some language, but I really enjoy the plot turns and surprises, and I think the ending put me in a good mood. It must be something else though, because I usually don’t get in an extended good mood unless something else is putting me in a good mood. Maybe I already know what it is? I should ask my mom, she could probably tell me what’s putting me in a good mood.

I haven’t mentioned how my mom has been doing for a while so I think I should inform the world to her condition: “Better than before.” That pretty much summarizes her condition. The scar on her head has healed nicely with only a small, long scar. Some of her head is still numb, and she has cut her hair. Katie says she looks “cute”.

As for her leg, it is getting better every day. My mom spent the entire day today in a wheelchair. Normally her leg gets swollen and she gets tired so she lays in bed in the afternoons, but the time spent in the wheelchair gets longer and longer. The knee is far less sore, and the hole in her knee is healing quite well. Other than the T-shape scar of the stitches, that looks almost normal. Except for the swelling, her leg looks normal now. She still has pain when bending, straightening, or holding the leg still. She's so thankful that God protected her in the crash and that he healed her forehead. There was no way that she could have only come away with a cut going half way around a curved head and not affect anything below. If the Lord can do that, then what is yet to come with the knee?

A little sadness

We had a litter of puppies last night, and this afternoon and evening, we noticed that one of the puppies was a runt. When we tried to feed it this evening it couldn't handle the food and had trouble breathing. We managed to get a little food in since then, and we'll see how it does.

Cares and worrys

Actually, I'm not going to talk about cares and worries specifically. I just wanted to talk about the sermon I heard Sunday about cares and worries. This post has had a little trouble getting posted. I almost had it done, along with an overdue E-mail :-), when the power on my computer ran out. Since it was 12:20 at night, I decided to retype it later. Let's see what happens this time.

Here are some of the highlights from the sermon with the main theme being: What does worry do? It takes our attention from God.

Philippians 4:6-7 "In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. " In 2 quick verses, God gives us several anti-cultural lifestyles: to not worry about anything, tell Him about all our problems, and rest in God's peace through Jesus Christ always.

Matthew 6:25... If God cares so much for things that are transient (even for us), then he cares so much more for his sons and daughters.

Matt 11:28 "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This is my favorite verse of the three. Because I don't follow and have faith in the first two verses, I praise God that he will continue to wait for us, and when we turn to Him (no time limit involved) He will give rest.

I've finished the book "Salamandastron". It's a sad book, but at least I think I'm finished with Redwall books for a while. I've read a little bit of "Jesus CEO" but I might start "In His Steps" first. I also have “Swiss Family Robinson” and “Vanity Fair” to read. Oh. I have so much work to do!

Iron is needed by the body to work properly

I don't think staying busy from 8:00 this morning to 11:00 tonight would have been so bad had I not stayed up until 2:30 last night reading "Taggarung" (or something like that spelling). I almost didn't blog tonight because I was ready for bed. But don't worry, my iron will and decisiveness made me get up and post for all you lovely fans out there.

Other than to toot my own horn about how much I work today ( I happen to know that my mom will laugh at what I consider 'work'. ), I did want to mention part of a conversation I overheard yesterday as I was shopping at Lowes. Two people were talking to a cashier and they were apparently from the same church. The older couple was telling the cashier how some person should be asked to leave the church because he was starting to move away from the Reformed position. When I heard that statement I had several reactions right off the top of my head. i.e. They came to me over the last two days.

(1) The Bible only uses expulsion from fellowship with believers as a last recourse for a believer who steadfastly refuses to repent, or simply said, is in a state of rebellion against the Church. Theological differences do not count as a rebellion against God.

(2) I could see asking the person to not be a member of a church if the church statement of belief for members requires a particular theological position, but that is far different than asking the person to part with the whole church body.

(3) A verse my mom really likes is Pro 27:17, "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. " When there is an honest disagreement between friends, especially the close friends within a church body, there is a growth of understanding. Proverbs 27 doesn't say that the opinions of either person will change or the disagreement will be solved, only that the understanding of both people will be improved, and it states that as a good.

(4) This is what we do in everyday life. We like to hang around people like us, who think the same way, and people who act the same way. The Bible does say not to be too buddy-buddy with non-Christians, but when we deal with other Christians, we should be willing to listen to other points of view with an open mind - and Proverbs says that we will be sharpened.

I felt like making a post... here it is!

I think I'm well into my relaxation mode now. There is a craft show about 2 weeks away that I'll have to spend long hours for, but right now, I wake up when I want (As long as it's before 8), work all day and run errands for my mom and dad, then finish about 8:30, finish my bath about 9:30 then I have the whole evening to myself! I'm already tired and it isn't much after 11:00. I've started reading the Redwall series again. The local library had a new book which I hadn't read before, so I checked it out and am slowly working through it. I'm also learning how to play a lot of simple 2 player games so I won't be reduced to War because I can't think of any other good games. Is it only me, or does this post seem a bit random?

Keeping un-lazy

I'm home, working, and got 2 computers I can play with. Hopefully I can get one of them to work if I mix and match enough. It would be nice to know what I'm doing. It would increase my chances of success quite a bit.

Thank you.

As the title says, thank you everyone for reading my blog. If you actually have read my blogs these last few days then you are probably crazy! These blogs were far too long. Sorry!

My last blog in this series. It's almost done! That's good because tomorrow I leave for the weekend again. :-D Oh no! I just got back and discovered it saved this post as a draft instead of publishing it! I thought it was out there for the world to see.

I thought it was a very good round. Katie and Charlie did a good job and managed to hold their own pretty well. One thing that I noticed about the round is that Katie and Charlie showed their lack of experience against fast talkers. Fast talkers are more popular in college and a person quickly learns to lump and clump arguements, but NCFCA hasn't had too many fast, coherent talkers. Katie and Charlie are good at lump and clump, but the shear number of arguements overwhelmed them. One thing about the Baker-Baker team that Katie had noticed and I enjoyed watching in future rounds was their command of information of the current topic. Katie said that they were the best informed team she had seen at nationals and from some of the subtleties I saw in the final round, I would have to agree. In finals, the affirmative had some excellent arguements but I'm still not sure who I would have voted for. If the Affirmative had brought up the complete lack of brinks in the DAs, I would have gone Aff, but that was never pointed out.

I'm home now! I think I mentioned that at the beginning of this series of blogs. My grandma flew down Sunday morning and I picked her up at the airport and she's moved into my room while she acclimates to the schedule of the household. She's not doing too much except to make sure things stay clean and dishes washed and clothes keep getting cycled through the washing machine and put away... OK, she's helping out quite a bit, but her big value comes in just being here for my mom. With all of us kids doing our daily activites, Mom doesn't have anyone to talk to during the long day; so grandma talks and they have visited extensively since her arrival here. I'm sure they still have quite a bit of catching up to do. The catching up that people do when they know they are going to spend a long time together is so much different than catching up with someone during a phone call. All sorts of details, small incidents, old incidents, and the humdrum of daily life is shared during the extended visits and that is so much more refreshing than phone calls, E-mails, or even blogs.

Yes, it's true. Blog's will not replace speech. :-)

Still blessed.

Nationals... That is a large blog in itself, but I'll write it up now. Hopefully it won't be too long. Monday got started off to a nice start if somewhat confusing. We couldn't check into our dorm rooms until four but Aunt Pauline was leaving at 9:30. Katie found that the Roths would be at the tournament in the afternoon so Aunt Pauline stayed until then and headed back to home. I judged once that day and listened to some great comments by a student panel on, "Was competing in NCFCA worth it to them?" All of the people said yes and I love the reasons: The changes one could make and the better witness to God's grace one could be in the world and the classroom. Is that not worth a lot? I think so. The student panel was an eye opener in other ways, because some of the students seemed only interested in the benefits that occurred through getting a better job. I realize they were concentrating on different aspects of the benefits so it wasn't their goal to be exclusive but it did make me start thinking that there are a lot of people who see debate as a way to improve their communication skills so they can get the coveted job in the White House.

Moving on to the rest of nationals now. Monday was a relatively short day. After getting a room and judging one round, I attended the introductory meeting that night and went to bed soon after that. Tuesday and Wednesday are almost identical. The days were arranged so that I spent most of the time judging. Both days combined (which started before 6 and usually ended about 12) ended up having 10 rounds of judging. Estimating about 2 and 1/4 hours each round, that was 22 hours of judging. On a day by day basis, I was putting in 11 hour days, just in judging. That doesn't include the rounds I skipped and walked with friends. It is SO nice to have people with which I can talk and relax with when I'm feeling lonely. NCFCA has a lot of old friends, but most of them are busy doing other things and don't go to Nationals. At the end of Wednesday, Katie and Charlie broke into double-octafinals but lost against Baker-Baker. My next blog will have more on that, but it's getting too long as it is.

I'm putting a lot of the last week’s events into this blog, but I thought I would skip forward and present the day-to-day life of... Friday when we got home from the airport. I loved California weather. It was hot, low humidity, sunny, and all around nice (except for the brief cooler spell). I got off in Pennsylvania just to find it swelteringly hot. I hadn't felt that warm since last summer here. No offense to Californians, but plain heat doesn't quite match with heat and humidity. After all, you can sweat more in California and cool down faster; that's how the body is designed to work. In Pennsylvania, if it is warm and you try sweating, all you get is a wet shirt and no cooler. The high humidity almost destroys the body's ability to cool down. Fortunately, the humidity was only above the 80% range. Still bearable. The real suffering comes during the summer's 100% humidity days. You can be all dry with dry clothes, you can sit in the shade with a fan blowing over you, but you will still be soaking wet and extremely hot in 10 minutes. Most folks don't realize how much they sweat until it doesn't evaporate.

Cool. I just finished my next post after this one. I'm a whole day ahead! I don't know about you, but these long blogs seem boring to me. I won't feel insulted if you don't read these. :-)

Still amazed.

If you read straight on from the last blog, this will probably make more sense. I had just finished talking about the people on the canoe trip and am moving onto the scenery.

The scenery was extremely beautiful. The whole French river area was an area that had been carved out by retreating glaciers. The rivers were big channels that retreating glaciers had carved. At one of the stops along the way, we were camping along the bay, and the shoreline for miles looked like someone with HUGE hand and had taken their fingers to the shoreline and just made pulled out channels of rocks. Each channel extended for a few hundred feet inland before the trees started covering them. Shannon, Jon, and I went and walked for a few clicks and all we did was go up, down, and circle around the channels that were low enough for rocks. My professor didn't get any pictures of that, but he did take about 400 pictures of other scenery. Some of the pictures are really neat. He is an amateur photographer that I think is really good and he got a lot of neat pictures with his high powered camera.

We got back to the college Friday and then had final presentations as soon as everyone got settled back in the classroom. Having the "final" Friday night meant people didn't have to return Saturday morning and could get a head start on the rest of the summer. At least the other students in my class got off to a fast start. I got off to a slower start because I ended up driving to GCC Saturday to drive Marianna to the airport. Of course there were a few stops along the way for storage, but we managed to fit everything in the car and get Marianna to the airport in time. I helped Marianna with the bags into the airport, and after a few dizzying trips on the elevator (we had trouble finding the right floor) Marianna was checked in and on her way home!

Sunday... I was lazy. No other way to put it. I didn't help Dad too much and I didn't spiffy up my room any. I didn't even play computer games... thinking back, I have no idea what I did. Monday was a bit more interesting. Since Mom was coming home, I made a nominal attempt at cleaning up my bedroom and tried to pick up around the house, but Margaret is a fantastic housekeeper when she is in charge. Everything was all right in the morning, so about 4:00 we went over to my Aunt and Uncle's house to have a Memorial Day get together. As we were leaving, Katie called my Aunt and we heard about the car accident. I won't speak on that since you already know the details. Needless to say, I and my whole family was swamped until Thursday when Katie and I left for Arizona to see my Grandma! That is also in an earlier blog so I won't say much more except the events that happened late in the week. I got to visit Cousin Shar and hang out in an old section of town. Katie got a lot of really neat items as graduation presents. I had no idea what I wanted so I went without. I also have to say that Aunt Pauline was great and drove us to San Diego for Nationals and waited around until all our baggage was handled. She took at least 7 hours out of a VERY busy day to make sure we were settled. Thanks Aunt Pauline!

I've been thinking today (not a lot of thinking, just a bit) about what I should start doing to prepare for the end of helping my family this summer. I'm going to take a general stab about what I will end up doing, so I thought I would try to write a nice computer program to show my future employer (I've done a lot of work on one over the spring semester) and just keep up my reading over the summer and try to keep it up when work starts. This summer I'm also planning to participate a lot in the NCFCA groups popping up around here and also work on the NFA topic.

There are still a lot of unaswered questions about what's going to happen... so what! I'll continue to mull over what is coming up, but each day has it's own troubles.

Still smiling.

This is THE blog, not necessarily for content, but for size. I'll have a lot of information but since there is so much, I'm splitting it up into 3 to 6 parts. I haven't decided. I was going to make one big blog but I decided I would never read it again if I did that. This is the first issue to come forth from my keyboard of this series that is available for consumption by the denizens of the internet. (you)

I have the first break in two weeks. I've had small breaks last week and days that have been very relaxing, but there is something about being at home that gives rest to the traveler. I'm actually not done working and will be very busy for the next week, but the salve has been applied and only time is required. I would have had a very disappointing week at nationals, but there were wells where I could rest along the way. But enough of how nice home is and how glad I am to see my mom and dad. What makes a restful place isn't the activity going on but the people I get to spend time with.

I'll attack this post from the oldest news to the latest. The first episode I shall reveal will contain the details of the Canoeing trip to the French River. This trip was just what the doctor ordered because after the last week of finals and then starting right into the two week class, I really needed a break, and the canoe trip offered the needed break. According to my professors, this trip was the easiest and laziest trip they had EVER taken. There were two professors and four students other than myself that went on the trip: Luke, Jon, Shannon and Rachel. They were a great group of people to go along with. They were all Christians and not hesitant to share their faith or what they thought. I will need to be a LITTLE circumspect because some of them may be reading this, but I'll still be pretty blunt. To start off with the bluntest statements of all. Of all the students on the canoe trip, I probably enjoyed the company of Rachel the most because most of the time she spent talking about her boyfriend. You would think that would get boring after 5 or 6 straight hours, but no! It stayed as interesting as ever. That was what I enjoyed, but what I missed the most was listening to Shannon. Apparently she was talkative in the evening while in her tent with Rachel but it was nothing I could ever hear. From the small crumbs that both Shannon and Rachel dropped about those conversations they sounded very thoughtful and something that I could have learned a lot from. Jon and Luke were both pretty quiet. None of us were talkers, but both of them did a lot of neat stuff. Luke was a lifeguard and had a lot of stories and plans about what to do over the coming year. He had also done a lot of hiking in the past. Jon was on the swim team at college and was doing a lot of missionary work.

This trip was a hard blow for the end of college. It made me realize that there was a whole group of people that I hadn't met that I wish I would have taken the opportunity to seek out. I already knew that the people I had met in college were far more interesting than my 4 years would allow. I think Shannon would have been especially neat to get to know because during the trip she was the mystery but seemed to have a very interesting life. Oh well. I'm sure I'll continue to meet great people, but I'll be trying to at least stay in touch with some of the people on the trip. One day I'll have the chance to meet all of these people and get to know them well!

For everyone

Nobility by Alice Cary

True worth is in being, not seeming----
In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little thing—not in dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.

For whatever men say in their blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There’s nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.

We get back our mete as we measure----
We cannot do wrong and feel right,
Nor can we give pain and gain pleasure,
For justice avenges each slight.

The air for the wing of the sparrow,
The bush for the robin and wren,
But always the path that is narrow
And straight, for the children of men.

“Tis not in the pages of story
The heart of its ills to beguile,
Though he who makes courtship to glory
Gives all that he has for her smile.

For when from her heights he has won her,
Alas! It is only to prove
That nothing‘s so sacred as honor,
And nothing so loyal as love!

We cnnnot make bargains for blisses,
Nor catch them like fishes In nets;
And sometimes the thing our life misses
Helps more than the thing which it gets,

For good lieth not in pursuing,
Nor gaining of great nor of small,
But just in the doing, and doing
As we would be done by, is all.

Through envy, through malice, through hating,
Against the world, early and late,
No jot of our courage abating----
Our part is to work and to wait.

And slight is the sting of his trouble
Whose winnings are less than his worth;
For he who is honest is noble,
Whatever his fortunes or birth.

My attempt at a short post

I'm home from California and finished with judging at NCFCA nationals. If my numbers are correct, I spent about 22 hours judging on Tuesday and Wedensday. I'm glad everyone made it home safely. My grandma will be coming out to help my mom while she is in bed. That's it folks. A short blog!

Enjoying the California sun

As the title of this post may indicate, we're in the wonderful state of California! We left Thursday morning about 7:15 for the airport. We went through Houston then onto Pheonix and spent some time with Uncle JD and his sons. The time we spent there was far too short though, we didn't have much time to talk to Andy and TJ had to leave about an hour after we got there. We then went to Grandma's house and stayed the night. I got to sleep about 11 and woke up at 2:50 to start the drive to Ontario. I was expecting myself to be a little bit more sleepy than I was, but it wasn't too bad. The benefit of leaving so early was that we got to my Aunts house by 12:00 and just in time for lunch. Right now, I'm hanging out at her house and trying to help where I can. I'm being a bit lazy right now by blogging, but in about 10 minutes I need to go get breakfast for everyone, so I think it is a fair trade-off. :-)

I still don't know if we are registered and have rooms for Nationals or not. I'm pretty sure we can be registered. The lady we E-mailed just said to make sure we checked and registered when we got to San Jose. The problem with housing is that I E-mailed two people about housing. One to see if anything could be done and another just to let her know what the problem is. Well, the one who I let know what the problem was said she handled it, but last night I got an E-mail asking if I wanted to reserve a room? We'll see how things work out. I'll call some people who already have things work out and live in CA. That might help a bit.

My mom is feeling under the weather. She got home last night, and she can't find any seats to sit in that are comfortable. The knee is in a cast, but any bumping of her leg or foot causes a lot of pain, as well as having a foot that is very swollen. She can't do any walking and my Dad helps her get around. I'm thinking and praying for you Mom! She has sold three dogs in her current state, but she's staying in bed today to relax. It's been pretty hard trying to get into a pattern and she's taking today off. Katie is almost back to normal. Even the bruise on her forehead isnt too noticeable but both of them could still use your prayers.

I'm starting to read through Clive Staple L's books. I really like the one I read on the canoe trip. (oops I forgot. I need to post a blog about it. Next time... maybe!) My mom had another book at home that I brought with me. The name of the book is "The Weight of Glory". It was edited by one of his closest friends and he had this to say about CS Lewis, "'The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.'" and he respected and thought Lewis's understanding of the world was better than any he met. Apparently, CS Lewis was a good practical joke player. This long intro was just to introduce the quotation I found that I thought really neat, especially with everything going on.

"The second enemy is frustration -- the feeling that we shall not have time to finish. If I say to you that no one has time to finish, that the longest human life leaves a man, in any branch of learning, a beginner, I shall seem to you to be saying something quite academic and theoretical. You would be surprised if you knew how soon one begins to feel the shortness of the tether, of how many things, even in middle life, we have to say "No time for that," "Too late now," and Not for me." But Nature herself forbids you to share that experience. A more Christian attitude, which can be attained at any age, is that of leaving futurity in God's hands. We may as well, for God will certainly retain it whether we leave it to Him or not. Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moement to moment 'as to the Lord.' It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received."

And I propose a toast - to today and whatever befalls.

Praise to Him who is worthy!

Ah... What an exciting weekend. It's a good thing the trip last week was relaxing, because this week has been hectic.

First, an update on the car crash... My sister is doing fine. She suffered a good bump on the head with a bunch of little cuts where her forehead hit the glass. She also got a nice size concussion, which we need to watch for a few days. She seems to be mostly fine now, but my grandma says she'll start feeling it tomorrow. As for my mom, she isn't doing too well. She has a fractured kneecap which doesn't necessarily need surgery, but it may. The doctors will give it a week. The 7 in cut on her forehead is basically a non issue as far as problems are concerned. The cut didn't have a matching concussion and the stitching was done cleanly, so my mom will just need to wear a hat for the summer so the cut doesn't get dirty. They didn't shave off much hair, and the line is pretty close to the hairline so I'm guessing my mom will tend to forget the hat after a week or so.

I want to thank everyone who was praying. I really appreciate it and so does my mom. The Lord really protected my mom and sister in a full blown, high speed crash and my mom is really thankful.

Second, I just realized I've missed a few E-mails. Normally I just look at the dark ones to see which ones are new. It turns out that a few of them have been put at the bottom of my list. Anyone with a last name past S - I apologize. And I know there are at least 3 of you I missed.

Third... Thanks to IM, this just became a late night. I will yet again put off more posting. I don't think I'll ever catch up at this point, so I may just start from square one next time (although I still plan on doing a lengthy post on the canoeing trip I took), but before I leave I did want to share one thing. I've been thinking a lot about what to do this summer. Up until the intersession class, the Lord was very clear that I should wait for an internship attached to the class. As the class approached and I lost all chance of looking for a job while still in college, the ability of me to work in the internship decreased. So at the end of the internship, I had no job search and few of the college's resources to help me out, but I was still confident and sure that the Lord had wanted me to wait. The question was then, what next. And me being impatient was starting to worry. Well, with my mom's accident, my Dad needs me to help, so the lack of a job enables me to help my family this summer, which they will really need. Most of the shows aren't possible to do with 1 person, hard with 2, and manageable with 3, so since I stay and help my Dad there are at least 2 people fully able to help! Praise the Lord!

Delayed, but for more than laziness!

This is not the post I promised in my last blog. To be truthful, I haven't typed any more on that blog. But not to worry! I'm working it out in my mind.... just like my school papers.... and just as successful... OK, maybe I need to start typing again. :-)

But onto the real reason I haven't been blogging. My mom was life-lited to a hospital with a concussion and needs to get a plate put in her crushed and broken knee. Earlier today has been spent driving to Butler to get Katie checked out of Butler Memorial with a Concussion and some seriously painfully bruised ribs. Is that enough reason not to blog? If you believe me it is. :-D On the way home from visiting my brother, my mom and little sister got into an accident and completely smashed the car. I should have pictures up in a week but the car is completely totaled. My mom was going about 55 and someone took a left turn when they shouldn't have and they wrecked. Considering the speeds involved and that they may not have been wearing seatbelts, they came out of the wreck very well.

The people in the other car are apparently OK. Their air-bags deployed and protected them pretty well. One has a broken ankle and some bruises and the other was apparently OK, but at the hospital, they flew him to another hospital for more treatment apparently. The amazing thing about their relatively unscathed bodies is the fact that they are both over 85 apparently.

The Lord was certainly protecting my family and the brother and sister in the other car. While at the hospital, relatives of the other car came and was talking to Katie and one of them was a Methodist minister and offered to pray with Katie (accepted of course). My sister thought that was so neat and was so happy there was someone like that in their family. She hasn't yet told me too much, but I'll know tomorrow morning.

It's been an exciting day. Please pray for the health of my sister and mother and that my mom's operations go well. It has put a damper in her travel plans so my sister and I will have to go to NCFCA nationals alone. That will make things a lot less fun and tougher to get around so pray that everything goes fine for that to. Hmmm. At this rate, I might as well finish by asking you for your prayers for my whole family and the current situation.

It's been an exciting day.

Delayed

It is too late tonight (this morning?) to finish what I've done, so I'll just give a sneak preview to my next two posts. I'll talk about my activities this last week (a canoe trip), the friends I've met, my plans for the summer, what the Lord has been telling me lately, more friends I've met, the parting from friends, the hope of reunions, hopes for the summer, what it feels like to be graduated, and little details from what is happening at home right now. I'm feeling overwhelmed just writing these blogs. It's too much for one night. I've already been typing for an hour with no end in sight. (Don't worry if you wanted to see, it's so confused and muddled you wouldn't want to see it even if I finished it) It will take me a while to sort through my thoughts and feelings.

I am so looking forward to seeing people I know again!

Late night

I promised to write a blog on my post graduation life after my graduation ceremony, so here it is! Nothing has really changed.... there, that says about everything. I'm still waiting to see what God has in store for me. I was hoping to get an intership at a church, as many of you know, but that doesn't seem to be too likely. I don't think any of that waiting was wasted time though. I felt pretty strongly that God didn't want me looking for other jobs other than the intership, so he has something in mind (of that I have no doubt), if nothing else but to save me from a horrible job. :-) My dad di offer to let me work for him this summer ( he seemed rather pleased at that prospect). Whatever happens, I'm not worried but that doesn't mean I'll relax and do nothing if I have the chance. I still plan on looking for jobs, even if it isn't even close to my major. Right now, I'll just keep as many doors open as possible and see which ones close.

This week has been a little hectic. I've been taking a course called "Wilderness Ministries that has quite a bit more qork than I planned. Fortunately I'm learning a lot and am a lot more confident and competent to go on a self planned trip. Other than the class, I've been helping my dad some - not as much as I think he would want, but I'll try to do better as soon as this class is finished. In fact, I just drove home today from a craft show near Pittsburg. The rest of the McConnell's are at the show, but since I'm leaving in 7 hours for the canoeing trip for "Wilderness Ministries" I got to come home and work on more schoolwork. I would probably be finished by now, except that we sold another black puppy!

This post is starting to wander a bit... I'll try to pull it back into a coherent mass. What has been hapening outside of my normal activities? Very little. I haven't gotten to read anything extraneous this week, I haven't gotten to play war with anyone, but I did get the chance to play with grass. I found out that it is almost impossible to whistle with grass if I have a ring on my thumb finger. During dinners, I've been watching a "Murder She Wrote" mystery, and I went and saw Star Wars III today. I'm starting to regret that decision. I would have been just as happy watching it one or two weeks from now when I wasn't so busy. Oh well, live and learn!

With all of this activity going on, I still seem to be staying is a good mood, although my answers to questions people ask have been one word answers recently. (I'm not being a good conversationalist.) Two more side notes. 1) I've been enjoying peoples blogs, and 2) my spell checker isn't workings so I apologize for the incovenience of bad spelling here. Now you get a chance to see how I really spell when I don't think it matters.