Loverly Weekend

I wake up this morning, and all I hear outside is the heavy wind pushing the branches and leaves on trees agains each other. I smelled like it was about to rain, the temperature outside my covers was cool, underneath the covers it was warm, and the air was fresh. THAT is the way to wake up.

My parents are at a craft show for the weekend, and I'm driving down to help them tear down. My younger sister and brother-in-law will be there, so they don't need my help too much; but since my dad isn't going to be there to help, it will be nice to have one more person who is familiar with how the truck and trailer gets packed. I haven't seen much of Ryan or my sister since she got married, and I'm looking forward to this afternoon.

My boss and his wife has been here for the last five days, and I've been busy. Not as busy perhaps, as other times they have come down, but busy nonetheless. I can still hear the trees rustling. It's a good start to the morning.

For those that haven't heard - my brother is now engaged to Charlessa!!!

Sadness and a hope everlasting

First, a addendum to the last blog: the tiny Malcomb hasn't actually arrived yet, I was just excited to get the pictures up. So instead, say hello to the soon to be newcomer!

Last Friday I found out that one of my friends at college passed away in a car accident. He was a professor ( I have had one class from him ) that I have known for almost 5 years now. The last two years I spent at college, I would go on weekend trips with the college debate team, and I was usually the one to stay up with him at night or early in the morning so he could stay awake. During those times we would talk a lot. Shakespeare mostly, but also about what was going on in each other's lives. I was privileged to be trusted enough for his confidences, and I pray that when I get to heaven, I'll have stood for Christ the way Dr. Price did through his actions and words.

None of us are secure from accidents, and I pray for God's blessing on all those that read this, that He would protect you in your travels.

Oddly enough, I don't feel sad at his passing... except that I'll no longer be able to see him on the road jogging, watch him with his coffee, or talk Shakespeare with him. Dr. Price was a Christian and he is spending his days in a far, far, far, far better, greater place than we can ever imagine. What I DO feel sad about is the family he left behind. To have a husband, the one closest to your heart, soulmate, to have him pass away is a blow that no one should need to handle. Any feelings I've had of loneliness can only pale in comparison. So I pray for the wife and son still here, I pray for strength, and mercy, and a revelation of God's overwhelming love and peace. I pray for healing of the ache in the soul and the shock of such the loss... and for the impossible joy of God's peace to come upon Dr. Price's family.

Future family

'Tis a happy day.

Say hello to the newcomer! Boy or Girl.... Boy or Girl.... Maybe I'll tell you in my next post. :-P

Finals, work, busy

The title sums up this week pretty well. I had a test Monday which I did fairly well. This Friday is a final and next Monday I will be done when I finish my Hebrew final. My boss will be coming two days later and then the work really starts. Because other people will be working with me, I'm going to have a more consistent work schedule. Since I don't know what this 'consistent' work schedule is like, I haven't signed up for any classes yet. While Allan is here, I'm going to see what it is like working together with 3 other people and then decide if it's going to be feasable to take two classes. If it doesn't seem feasable, I'm only going to take Readings in Biblical Hebrew and drop Excersice Science Anatomy and Physiology.

Right now, I'm going to finish work up and do a little more studying before I go to bed. I'm looking forward to a long, relaxing weekend at home. There are a few things that need to be done such as getting the weedeater out and using it on some hard to reach areas, putting some new screen on the back porch, and Dad will probably have some things to do at the shop. It's going to be a good weekend.

I'mmmmm Baaaaack!

Finally! I've been trying to blog since.... a long time ago, but whenever I long in, I could no longer access my blog. It's been a sad two months. I search for the answer in the forums, but they never seemed to be addressing my exact problem, thus I turned to the brute force approach. I found the answer in Blogger's answers forum: Answer 656. Yes. I do have a life. I never got that high in the list. I tried searching the user forum again, and one of the forum posts had a link to answer 656. I followed the directions and now have access to Blogger!

This was only a break and so I can't type long.... I have a test in a few hours. Hebrew is a great language to learn. Compared to other classes, it's an easy class to study for. If you've been doing your homework and keeping up on the vocab and verb stems then the tests are a breeze. If you haven't.... can't help it. Hebrew resists all attempts at cramming. I'm just going to spend a few hours translating and doing some extra Hebrew homework and review stems... and then we'll see. The kids who keep up on Hebrew do NO study for the tests. That would be nice to be able to do that!

Ah............................ It's good to be back!

I'm being brainwashed

Yes. It is true. I'm being brainwashed. Not by the usual suspects such as the government or clandestine organizations... no. This is much more sinister. I'm being brainwashed, in public, with everyone's apparent acceptance.

It started like any other day. Getting up at 7:30 and starting work. Having some cold cereal for break, and using my computer for everything. Simple and routine. Like any other day... but I learned the truth. About the middle of the day, my boss and I were going to go play racquetball, but various problems kept occuring and the time for racquetball kept getting pushed later and later. Finally things clear up and I go to my room to get a better (worse) shirt in which to play racquetball. I start to change, but I wasn't paying attention and took my belt off. Just as the belt is coming out of the last loop I think (warning. Swearing ahead), "Shoot. Where's the undo button?" At that point, I found out who the master brainwashers were... Microsoft. Linux. IBM. CVS. Intel. GFQ. JiY. OOPLs. EDPLs. The Big 4.

"They" are all trying to steel a slice of my mind with this purpose: To take away my initiative, inventiveness, willingness to change and work outside the mold: to make me someone who will no longer think: "Bah, Who needs a belt anyway." :-D

The Day of the Dentist - or not

I finished with classes about 12:00 yesterday, and came home and managed to get around 8 hours of work done. That doesn't include lunch, dinner, goofing off, or talking with the boss. Having my boss here is really helpful. If I hit a problem with something, instead of hitting my head against a brick wall for a few hours, I can ask him a question, and with his experience and skill in programming he can usually send me in the right direction. Just being able to debate and discuss programming problems with other people makes programming so much more interesting. (Time for a Risk analogy Sean ) It's like Risk, you can play Risk by yourself, but the game is most fun when other people playing. In my case ( A computer addict ), I usually pit myself against computer players, but the analogy still holds.

Searching for a Church

Today was a nice, relaxing day. I went to church with my roommate Dan again. The church is very nice, but I didn't get the feeling of vibrant life. Having lunch after church is nice, especially when I know most of the people, but it's not a very good trade off if it means going to a church that isn't challenging me to reach higher. Granted, I've only heard two sermons. Both of the sermons were basically history lessons. We covered Timothy the first time I went and 2nd Chronicles this time; both times the sermon was explaining the why the particular passages were being written but there wasn't a lesson, warning, or message drawn out of the passages. It was just an explanation of the current time. Some of the college kids that go to the church are vocal, strong Christians, so I may go a few more times to see if the problem is me and a hard heart that's not willing to listen to what's being said.

In other news, my mom is on her way to Arizona tomorrow. She's going over to visit my grandma and spend some with her brothers and sisters. In another few months, most of the family will be going over for a big family reunion. We'll have the reunion in Grandma's new house. "New" is a relative term. It's a house that Grandpa and Grandma built together, and it's been 10 years or more since it's been finished. It's in a large valley, surrounded by woods. I can sit on the porch and watch the shadows of the clouds as they cast their reflection on the ground. I can't wait to see it again.

A profitable workday

I've been having trouble working lately. I'm working alone, and the work has all been very similar lately. Today, there was a part time worker so I had some incentive to work while he was there. I made a small breakthrough this morning, and I can start expanding my horizons into a new programming area. My boss is coming tomorrow, so I wanted to get one last detail working before he got here. I finished my programming test Wednesday and have a test Monday so I'm getting in some work because I know I'll need to save some time Saturday for study. I figured out that in the last three weeks, I've basically taken one week off. It was a bit shocking when I counted up my hours. My goal for the next 2 weeks is to make up the difference! An ambitious goal, but aiming low doesn't help and as Christians we should be good stewards of our responsibilities towards others and how we use our time for Christ.

I tried figuring out what used up so much time, and I can account for about a half of my off time. (and I think I'm quite accurate) All the rest of the time... no clue. Nothing profitable I'm sure. My mom mentioned something that hit me. All the time I spend goofing off and procrastinating is time I don't spend doing what I would do if I really had that time off.

Just a few thoughts I have at the end of the day.

Valentines Day Reflections

Valentines Day has come and gone. I only sent one chocolate bar. Sigh. I'm done being mushy now. The chocolate bar and the note was a hint to get an item of mine back. I don't need the item much at all, but it's fun to make fun of procrastinators (and yes, before you say anything, I am a procrastinator ). It took me almost a year to start getting that backpack repaired, and now it's getting repaired! It's not too fancy, but I've had it for the last 5 years and it's a bit hard to give up on it now. Just because it's has a tear 10 inches long doesn't mean it's time to get a new backpack!

I wish Eric and Victoria were back here at college. There was wayyyy too much PDA going on, and Victoria was the queen of stopping any unofficial PDA.

I don't have many reflections on Valentines day. It's a nice holidy if you're in a serious relationship, and a fun one if you're not. Half the fun of Valentines day is laughing at the commercials on TV. . . after all, what is so romantic about a four-door jeep driving through a waterfall? Or a battery powered razor? As our commie marketing major would say about the commercials, "Ugh. Turn it off. It's so bad I don't want to see it!". She then proceeds to cover her eyes and plug her ears until the commercial is done. Good for her!

On a side note: Hebrew is a great language to learn. I know it's not on most people's "Top 10 list of languages I want to learn", but Hebrew gives a new way to view the Bible. In Hebrew class we were practing out translation and... the verse evades me at the moment. Joseph had just told his brother's about his dream and his brothers said none too kindly, "Will you indeed rule over us?" In a very close translation, it would come out something like "Reigning, you will reign over us?" (This particular Hebrew construct has no English equivilent. We can only get close. ) In Hebrew to stress something, you repeat it. i.e. the emphasis on reigning.

When I read the verse in English, I thought the stress was on 'you'. The brother's didn't like Joseph, so it sounded to me like it was just emphasizing that fact. In Hebrew, the emphasis isn't on the 'you' part. It's on the 'reigning' part. When I read it in Hebrew (after tedious translation. I'm not a good translator. ) I get the impressing that the brother's weren't mad at Joseph. They were mad that Joseph would think he would ever rule over his older brothers.

Maybe it's not a big difference, but it made me look at the brothers in a kinder light. It made me think that the brother's didn't hate Joseph, Joseph might have been quite likable. What they hated was the fact that he might really rule over them - especially when looking at how their father treated him.

Repair service

As I take off my coat, I hear something jingle. Could it be my keys? No. They were in my hand. Any spare change? No. All the pockets were empty. But I'm positive I hear something gingle. I shake the coat again and hear the elusive clinking again. I slowly shake the coat, one section at a time, until I feel keys in my pocket. I reach into the pocket, feel a small whole at the bottom and reach a bit farther to find... the keys to my parent's car. Oops. :-)

Fortunately, Mom and Dad have a backup set so they weren't worried when they found out.

I made a trip home this weekend, even though I was woefully behind on work. To a certain extent, I don't mind not working 40 hours a week, but I told my boss I would be try to work 40 hours a week and those hours are what I use to pay my bills! This week and next week, while my boss is here, I'll be getting 55 to 60 hour weeks. That's how the schedule usually works out (more or usually less). I figure the next two weeks will make up for all my low hours for the last 3 weeks.

I also had my first microwaved lasagna today! I'm not a great cook, but I do find pre-prepared vegetable lasagnas very tasty. Not nearly as good as my mom makes, but tastier than anything I can prepare! I've cooked lasagnas before, but I've have always used the oven. Today, I took a leap into the bachelor lifestyle and decided to try to use the microwave for something other than hot chocolate and tea. The lasagna turned out pretty well if I do say so myself!.

End of the week post

There aren't too many new items of interest to report on, but I'll do my best to make all the uniteresting events sounds fascinating. :-)

This Tuesday and part of Wednesday I was ill. I'm guessing the stomach flu; by Tuesday evening I couldn't go to sleep it was so bad. Fortunately, I did end up going to sleep, but I woke up around 5:00, still ill. Around 8:30 I finally fell back to sleep and when I woke up, I felt mostly fine.

Another fascinating topics (As decided by me) - the NCFCA practice debate tournament this weekend! I don't know if I'll be judging, watching, or competing; but whatever I do, I'm looking forward to it! I missed the last tournament and I'm really looking forward to this one.

And my final topic of interest:

Middle of the week break

I'm back at work today. Because my mom and sister will be gone this weekend, I went home this Wednesday and Thursday. I did absolutely no work for my job, got some projects finished around the house ( like taxes ), read the newspaper, watched some Campion mysteries, and made sure Margaret didn't take it too easy. From what I see, my mom and dad don't give her enough chores - she seems to sleep all day! ;-)

One final note of interest ( at least it is interesting for me ) - I drove to the YMCA and went on a tour. I was shown on a brief tour of the facilities, and depending on how much I can use the weight room at the college, I may get a membership to the YMCA and do my workouts there. I do a bit of exercising at home to keep in shape, but it's not a full body workout. I think I may even lower the weights for my main barbell. Right now it is 37.4 lbs, but it's getting to be too much.

For the last few months my dad, Jesse, and I have been increasing the number of pushups we do. When I went home this week, we went ahead and did the traditional birthday pushups. Whenever my dad has a birthday ( or close to a birthday in this case ), Dad does pushups equal to how old he is. We sons can't be outdone, so we do them also. The plan didn't quite go according to my plan this year. My plan was to do pushups and finish with ease while dad huffed and wheezed. Instead, Dad and Jesse did extra pushups without appearing to strain to much, and I'm straining, arching, wheezing, shaking, and resting to finish my last 6 pushups to reach the minimum. Oh well. There's always next year. I figure that eventually, Dad's age will catch up to him and I'll be able to outdo him...... but enough of my wishful thinking. I'm having hard enough time trying to stay in the same ballgame as Dad. :-)

Better watch out Dad! Next year I'll do twice as many! If I really want to.

Closing in

For the last two weeks, I've been kept quite busy trying to get a module of the companies project out on time. And by on time, I mean soon enough to get a bonus. At this moment, I doubt that we'll meet the timetable, but that's fine with me. It's always nice to get a bonus, but it is quite satisfying that my estimates of time to finish the project were very accurate. This Monday was the earliest possible time set forward for finishing.

But enough about work. I spent the weekend at home! It was great being home, but since I still was working some on Saturday, I couldn't lounge about with Mom and Dad - not that they lounge... it would be more like I lounge while they do their work :-) Fortunately, before I went back to my appartment today, my mom had me finish all my tax forms, so I should be finished with that until the next quarter.

Other than that, not much is happening to me other than the routine, day to day activities. Before I go to sleep tonight, I still want to finish a Hebrew practice exam, and I would like to program in Squeak some, but I doubt I'll feel like staying up late enough to get more than Hebrew finished.

Once I finish work tomorrow, I can take a good, sleep in late, goof off and not feel like I should be working, day. When tomorrow evening arrives, I plan on watching "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek". Our whole family laughed during "Morgan's Creek" the first time we watched it, and I'm looking forward to watching the movie again. And on Tuesday morning, I plan on an activity that will be the highlight of the week: sleeping in until 9:00!! Unfortunately, the last time I got to sleep in, I woke up at 7:50! :-(

Late nights

Before I went to bed, I thought I would let the world ( mostly my family ) know what I have been doing. I thought that today would be a fairly representative sample... but anyone who has taken statistics would know that one sample is rarely enough for accuracy, so I'll make sure to post a few more samples over the next few days.

I got up at 8:00 this morning. My boss left the apartment two days ago and this was the first morning I could turn off the alarm clock and sleep in. I merrily went about my way until Jaren ( a co-worker ) came and started working. Programming at a fairly standard rate until 10:00 at which point I called my mom. A little later, I went to the bank to deposit a check, went to withdraw some money, found I had forgotten my PIN, drove to my apartment and discovered that I'm slightly dyslexic, drove back to the bank, extracted some money while at the same time managing to press far more buttons on the ATM than needed, bought some TocoBell burritos for lunch, and went home and started working again.

About 3, I started to get ready for my trip to the college to take care of some details. I wanted to get a parking permit since I believe I'll be driving in quite often. After 30 minutes, I'm in my car and cruising the 'burbs to find some alternate parking before I pay for a parking permit. No spots look likely, so I go down to the security office, which consumed another 30 minutes while the person on duty answered the phone multiple times, and had to walk to a back office to determine if they would give me a parking permit. There must have been something suspicious about a graduate asking for a permit.... but my natural charm overcame all the barriers and I am a proud owner of a parking permit!

I then park ( in commuter parking no less ) and look for some friends that would be willing to help me get some notes for an advanced programming class. The professor never takes his notes down, so he has all the powerpoints and homework assignments up... perfect for self-teaching if I had the motivation. After talking to some long-lost friends, I proceeded to the library to see if I could get the computer help desk to put me back on the college network.... it was a bit harder to work my charm because no one could find a record of me as a student at the college, :-) but they were kind enough to help me in my distress.

After researching multiple periodicals and finding ONE article on the subject I was looking for, I returned home and started work... after writing a summation of the article. I did about two hours of Hebrew exercises and started working again.

It's a late night for me, and tomorrow won't be much earlier... but there is one definite bright spot. Marie will repair my dilapidated backpack! One of the activities Marie does is repair ripped and torn backpacks. Tomorrow is looking like a great day!

busy, busy, busy!

My boss came back from Florida Thrusday, and Dan and I have had our nose to the grindstone while he's here. Hopefully, by the time school starts on.... tomorrow, We'll have made some decent progress. Just a quick post to let people know I'm still alive and kicking!

A Relaxing Day

Today was a relaxing day.

Because my boss is here for the week, I didn't go home to family this weekend. Instead, I worked Saturday and had the opportunity to attend a church near my apartment.

The church body was larger than I thought it was, and I thought the message was pretty good, but my favorite part was when a family invited me over for lunch after church. My mom has instilled in me an appreciation for churches who have members who practice hospitality. The family had made inviting college students (and even recent graduates apparently ) over to their house a type of ministry they had. I knew all of the college students that had come and it was a very relaxing atmosphere, I even knew the children of the couple. There was even another professor that came to lunch and I had met him briefly in my last semester of college.

We didn't talk too much. There was a steady stream of conversation, but it was only two people at a time. Everyone else relaxed in VERY comfortable chairs and couches and listened or read the Berstein Bears to the small children.

A very relaxing day.

And happy birthday S. Shmitty!

Magic show

This is an obligatory paragraph to celebrate the first day of the new year, because every year is better than the last! Long live Wolfe! Flummery. :-)

My dad had his annual magic show last night and several of the tricks stood up to the inspection of the crowd. That may not seem like a very successful show, but my dad has the toughest crowd of any performer I know or have known and any success is an effort that even Hercules couldn't have achieved.

Everyone, the adults in chairs farther back and the kids on the floor a foot away from my dad, gathers to watch the New Year's show. As long as NONE of the kids have ANY idea how a trick works, my dad is safe; but if one of the kids has the smallest guess about how it's done ( correct or not ), he'll yell it out, and then all the kids stand up, swarm my dad and the trick to see if the idea is right or not, yelling their own personal ideas of how the trick was done, and pulling and pushing all the items used.

In one of the tricks one of the kids had an idea that Dad had a card stuck to the bottom of his foot, so about 5 of the kids get their head on the floor, just over a foot away from my dad's feet, and keep yelling that he has a card on the bottom of his foot (They couldn't see a card, but they still yelled. :-) ). After about 10 seconds of dodging probing hands while he's walking around to do the next trick, my Dad finally lifted his foot too high and one of the kids saw it and started yelling, "I saw it! I saw it!".

Fending off 10 kids ( ages 8 to 14 ) and still managing to have several successful magic tricks must be the 8th wonder of the world.

Until next year Dad!!!

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".