Another lovely day

I got home from my visit to Virginia and it was a very nice break. Right now, my mom is making me get some work done, so I will wish everyone a good day. ::What's for lunch mom?::

Actually - it's half gone now - Lambchops no more

I think I've always enjoyed visiting my brother. Today was no exception. I got to sleep in until 8, and I got an 1 and 1/2 nap this afernoon, and I'll probably be asleep before 11. But the fun part about the trip is seeing my bro' again after a few months away and I got to see my nephew who is just old enough now that I can occassionally make out one of his words, and trying to figure out what he is trying to say is half the fun.

I've started programming again after a long break. The part I'm putting off is updating the college speech and debate website. There is a lot of information I should put up, but I'm so slow with editing websites that adding a lot of information may be time consuming. I am determined to finish the update before I go back to school.

Right now, I'm the last one up to do this blog. We are all in Jesse's 20 by 20 apartment and I will be the 5th and last one to fall asleep. I hope those of you I know at shool have gotten a ride home and everything is going and will go well. A great Easter for all and to all a great night!

Half gone - soon to only be the mustache

I'm at my brother's apartment now. It was a long drive, and in the last week I've driven over 1000 miles. I'm looking forward to just sitting at home and doing schoolwork. In the meantime, I'll have to settle for sitting here and doing schoolwork. Sure... I'm actually planning on working on my computer and working with some more development pacts for Dev-C++.

I've been keeping up on the Terri Schiavo case, and I have to say I have mixed feelings. On my drive down to DC, I was talking to my mom and we both have different opinions. It finally came down to at what point am I or God responsible for my life. If I'm in a coma, am I still responsible for my life? If I'm not responsible, do others have that responsibility? If I'm in a 'persistent vegetative state' such as Terri is in, does God consider me dead and my body is still functioning without a soul? It's too big an issue for me.

I'm looking forward to warm, dry weather. Wherever I step on the yard at home, I can see the ground around my foot deform for 2-4 inches. The two inch deformation is on the heavy grass part and the four inch deformation is where the grass is sparse and it is mostly mud. Oddly enough, there is one large, solid patch of ground out by my dad's shop, and it is all bare dirt!

Offline vs Online

Looking over the last few blogs I've made, I think that when I type up my blogs offline I get far too verbose. Most people reading this probably blog, so let me take a survey - who prefers typing the blog offline and who prefers to type up the blog at the last minute?

Our church just got a new projector to replace the old one and I just got trained to operate it this morning. 2 hours and 15 minutes of explanation for 3 buttons. The three buttons didn't take up the whole time, but training also included how to work with files in windows XP and how to develop PowerPoint slides.

Tonight our church held a large Sader meal, and that was neat, but I'm pretty tired so I couldn't appreciate it as much as I should have. One thing the meal did inspire me to work on was Hebrew. I enjoyed being able to pronounce the Hebrew words, but I've forgotten almost all the vocabulary. I think I'll start as soon as I finish my blog. I'm trying to blog every single day I'm home. ;-)

So Close, and yet so Far

Currently, I am just back today from Syracuse, New York. The tournament only qualified one team, but at least my sister got into finals. The real fun of the tournament started when she found out that she and Charlie got into quarterfinals. One of the things that ended up making this round so funny was that Katie and Charlie were eighth seed going into the round, so they ended up going against the first seed. Katie ended up winning by a 2-1 decision, and moved onto semi-finals. Unfortunately, Katie met another team from our area and only one of them could go on. Fortunately (from my perspective), Katie ended up winning that by a 4-1 decision and moved onto finals. Katie said finals was probably the best round she had at the tournament and that it was a good example round for everyone watching. I couldn't watch the actual debate, because I was too nervous, but I listened to her 1AC and the CX. The CX was tough and I knew right then and there it would be a tough round, especially since Katie and Charlie were 2AC, running a case they had just gotten together 2 days before. They had put a lot of work into it though, so they were pretty prepared for most of the arguments. Their case had lost twice in prelims, and Katie lost the toss, or else I think they would have gone negative. Oh well. It was a 6-1 decision, and Katie and Charlie will be going to nationals! Katie is ready to go, but nationals is so far away so hopefully she won't lose some of her eagerness before then.

And that was a long paragraph, so I'll make this one a lot shorter!

While at the tournament we stayed at a motel, didn't get lost, and ate out with some friends afterward. I was in charge of driving 750 miles and keeping track of the money, and while I apparently did alright, it was extremely nerve-wracking. I guess I was learning first-hand why managers tend to die younger than most - being responsible over things adds a lot of pressure to an otherwise enjoyable trip. But, whatever my nervousness, the Lord was still looking over our trip, because the car we were going to take had just gone to the shop and the mechanic said that the car was getting rusty and the axle didn't look too good. Normally, we don't mind driving cars that are in poor condition because they seem to hold up well for us (another blessing by the Lord), but this time, my mom decided to play it safe, and we took my car for the trip. The day we left, my mom went to get some groceries, and as she was making a turn on the way home, the car started squealing horribly. Mom pulled over to the side and called my dad and AAA and then waited. She decided to try the car again, and she turned it on alright, and she put it into gear with some trouble, but when she hit the gas, nothing happened. She learned later that the axle had fallen out of the car!

As a side note, I'm shaving my beard tonight!

Like a Herd of Turtles

Today started out lovely - I got to get up when I felt like it. Of course, since that was fairly early (why do I wake up early for break?), that meant I needed to feed the dogs before I got ready for church. I had about 45 minutes after that to get ready, and I finished getting ready in about 20 minutes. The rest of that time was spent packing for the debate trip to Syracuse, NY. We'll only drive about 4 hours today and finish the rest tomorrow. Depending on how tired I am, we may drive the whole 8 hour drive back on Wednesday night. If not, we'll stop and sleep.

Packing for a tournament is putting me in the mood to do debate work, so I may try working on 'my' debate case. I'm bringing my laptop and I might even have some internet access at the motels! Internet access might mean that my sister and I will want on IM and check E-mail, and make chess moves, so I may not get any research done. That would be about par for debate research.

On a political note, I'm getting more and more discouraged at the actions of our political leaders. I'm mostly a republican, but what is the use of voting for a republican if they don't uphold the party ideals. Ideals are supposed to be the guiding principles, but if they are not followed, there is only danger ahead. One of my best friends at college is a Democrat. I have a lot of respect for him, because he follows the ideals of the Democratic Party. Just as I dislike much of what the 'Republican' party is doing, so he does not like much of what the Democratic Party is doing. When we talk, we tend to agree on what must be done, which also makes me question how much we are actually following our partys ideals. I'm looking forward to the day that Bush uses his veto, and I hope he starts to use it quite freely. Having too long a reign only leads to license to sin if Christian beliefs are not the basis of actions.

I do a lot of extemp research and I've read a lot of newspapers, magazines, and periodicals, and the more I read, the more I realize how much our ideology is displayed in what is written. I enjoy seeing what papers people view as 'balanced' because they only state the 'facts', because when I read those papers, the biases of the writer is on display for the world to see. There is no 'balanced' newspaper, merely newspapers that agree with our opinions.

Depressionism is bad

In civ arts, I hear about realism, impressionism's and 'ism's left and right. I thought I'd make a new 'ism. Depressionism I'll define as a general gloom that hangs about and the exact source is hard to find.

I like to think I'm decent an most computer games, but when I play Counterstrike with my friends, I am always at the bottom to the pile. Maybe I just need more practice or maybe I'm just bad at it? It's good I only play for fun or else it would be almost depressing.

Forturnately, even with CS, I'm in a good mood today. Maybe it's the fact I've gotten nine hours of sleep the last two nights. Maybe it's because I'm looking forward to break quite a bit. Maybe it's because there is hope that lifts above what today or the semester will bring.

I found a funny video? yesterday. I hope she didn't get hurt too bad.

Class time! No time to double check grammar or spelling. I'm off (my rocker).

Lineage

I've decided that I am a decidedly poor blogger. None of my blogs seem to have any relation to any other blog and the time space between blogs is too far apart to keep interest for people who read blogs.

Time has now come to have a break from school. In another day, I will be on break and will start worrying about schoolwork. It seems backwards, but I do a lot of work for school over 'break'. It's been a hard week, but this day has been getting better since I got up.

I was looking at a website about William Kelsey and I saw his coat of arms. That made me curious about my coat of arms, so I decided to find it. I had trouble finding my family's coat of arms. Of the coat of arms I've found on one website, I find it suspicious that all the coat of arms have names on the bottom. I'm not knowledgeable of how coat of arms work, but I doubt they all have the same style with the same font of name on the bottom of the crest on a ribbon. Something seems fishy. I did find a coat of arms, but I don't know how accurate it is.

activities galore

Today, I have four activities I should attend - at the same time. That wouldn't be bad, except I want to attend all of them. First, what I actually am attending is a "friendly" game. "Friendly" means no one draws blood. It's been set up for about a week now so it can't be rescheduled easily. The second activity available is that I've been invited to go to an intervis. This will be the third time I've ever been invited and I would also make that. Third is to watch a Shakespeare play. I watched it last night and it was magnificent, and I would love to see it again. Fourth is bowling, which I just learned is rescheduled to 3:30 so it won't conflict with anything else!

I'm guessing one of the pleasures heaven has for us is the ability to attend every great function even if they are happening at the same time. It's hard to believe it could be possible, but one of the things I know is that heaven is full of great things we can't even imagine! Even better than what I could wish!

Excelsior

States was last week, and now it is onto Muskingham. Again, I haven't gotten much sleep this week, but the work has been worth it. I've had very late meetings every night this week, and Friday will be busy debating and prepping for the debates. Friday night I'll probably be spending memorizing my persuasive speech.

Right now, 5 electrical engineers are around me working on homework and have been for the last 3 hours. Apparently homwork is due today! :-)

....I'm busy....