Fantastical Adventures through Dreamland

ALPHA and omega

2006-12-13T21:16:00.000-06:00

i know, i know. i never capitalize unless it has meaning. well, this capitalization has meaning. i was driving home a couple weeks ago and i heard a song on the radio that said something like this: "You're been doing great things since the world began." and i started thinking that God has always been. He has no beginning. we often focus on how eternal He will be in the future, but what about the past? did you ever think about what was He doing before time began? i like to think that He was shaping us and our personalities and our very lives. think of how many people there have been on this earth since time began. there are over 6 billion people alive on earth now, but in the past 6000 years, exactly how many have there been? there's no way to tell while on this earth. maybe God was shaping the life of each and every person. how much time did He spend on each one? since He has no beginning, so maybe he spent a minute, maybe he spent a day, or maybe he spent 2 millions years. stop right there and think of that: God spent 2 million years on just you. 2 million years on making, forming, planning your life and your being. now you may be thinking: "well, there's not much to me. there's no way He spent 2 million years on me. more like 2 seconds. ha!" well, there's more to you than you think. your emotions, your likes, your dislikes, your habits, your physical appearance, your mental ability, etc. i don't know if He really spent 2 million years on each person; He could have spent less than a second if He wanted too, but i believe He loves us that much to spend that much time on each one of us.

ephesians 3:20

2006-11-21T20:36:00.000-06:00

i was in phoenix on sunday for joel and amber's wedding and they read ephesians 3 for the wedding service. this verse is usually taken with the others around it, but i like it by itself.

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us"

i had forgotten about that verse until the minister read it. it convicted me of all the times that i try to do things on my own forgetting that if i give it up to God, He will turn it into something so much better. i ask myself why? why do i try to control situations? why do i try to make my own decisions? why do i worry about things i have no control over? sometimes, i make mountains out of molehills, when if i had trusted God to begin with, there wouldn't even be a molehill. silly human thinking. peace.

i need You

2006-11-14T18:35:00.000-06:00

it's uncharacteristic of me to post twice in the same week, but i just had to post this amazing song by the swift called "i need You" (i can't do the colors like natalie can, but you get the point)

My heart is restless in me
My wings are all worn out
I'm walking in the wilderness
And I cannot get out
I need You, Oh, I need You
Blessed Savior come
I need You, Oh, I need You
Fill the every longing in my soul

CHORUS
Oh, how I need You, Lord
I need Your perfect Word
With tearful eyes to see
The sin that I afford
I need to weep and pray
For all the thousand ways
That I have failed You just today

My bed is soaked with sadness
My sadness has no end
A downward spiral of despair
That I keep falling in
I need You, Oh, I need You
To You my soul shall fly
I need You, Oh, I need You
Yaweh, how I love You more than life

CHORUS

Your silence is like death to me
So won't You hear my desperate plea

Today my soul is soaring
Way over mountains high
Though I can see the valleys
They're all just passing by
It's not that I am stronger
Look at my feeble wings
But I've been lifted higher
Yaweh's lifted me in His own strength

Oh, how I love You, Lord
I love Your perfect Word
With tearful eyes to see
The God who always will endure
Now I will celebrate
For all the thousand ways
That You have shown me grace
And made my heart in grace to stay
You've made my heart in grace to stay
Lord, make my heart in grace to stay

I need You, Oh, I need You

i'm not dead

2006-11-12T18:02:00.000-06:00

i promise. sooo much keeps happening to me so i decided not to bother posting it. plus the few hours i have on evening and weekends, i just want to relax, not post. but i suppose i should give you something. you've all waited so long for it.

last night, i hosted my first ever halo party. first time hosting, not attending. i believe it went well. we had up to 15 people at one point. a few came and went, but there were a solid 13 or 14 for most of the night through halo (original) and halo 2. after the upstairs team finally won, four of them left and we went back to halo (original). we had pizza and soda for all. we ran a little short on pizzas so we'll have to get more next time. you can't beat $30 for 8 pizzas from prime time pizza. good times, good times.

tomorrow, i have an interview at linco in el paso. they're looking for someone to maintain and troubleshoot gps systems as well as maintain the website. i don't know much about gps and some about websites. they're looking for someone with lots of experience. i told the guy on the phone that i want to learn gps systems and that i am a quick learner so he told me to come in and we'll talk about it. could be a good opportunity so we'll see!

i'm only working three days this week because on thursday morning i'm going to phoenix! i'm so excited. i miss morgan and sam and andy. morgan, i was thinking of that improv comedy club on thursday night; what do you think? maybe we should run it by everyone else. or we could hang out at that coffeeshop or something (unless the man in an ice cream suit is next door [shudder]). or we could go swimming at the biltmore! or scorpion hunting!! ah, i need to get to phoenix more often. anyhoo, i'm hoping it's ok if we stay at sam's. i should probably call and ask.

i've committed to a colorado trip! and mexico with isu yg (i hope). kyle and tara and ben may go out the same week so i'll probably go one day to vail with kyle. i'm staying at tommy hoerr's condo. also going is david thames, ryan schick, logan hangartner, ryan luginbuhl, justin wiegand, and tim schmidgall. ty sauder's group is also going to be out there at the same time as well as kelly kaiser's group. it's a popular week to go!

for my devotions, i've been making my way through proverbs. it's tough since most consecutive verses aren't connected to each other, but there lots of great stuff to gleam from it. the main points that have stuck out to me are the importance of wisdom and the importance of keeping one's mouth shut. i was talking to former gridley elder edwin ringger in church today and he was talking about how his doctor remarked about how much wisdom he had. edwin told him that it was a result of learning from his mistakes. king david is a great example of this. how often do we think of david as one of the great patriarchs of the old testament? how many times did he make a mistake? the important part of david's mistakes is that he realized they were just that and he learned from them. the same thing applies to us today. even though we have repented for our past sins and have been baptized, we still make mistakes. we are not perfect and will never be in this lifetime. we can't look back at our past mistakes and think "i'm a horrible person. God would never forgive me for that." we need to think "i screwed up. this is what i did wrong. when this situation presents itself again, i'll know not to do that again."

ok, this is pretty long, and i don't like long posts so i'll leave you with some irish toasts that jake just printed out on his new printer:

i have known many
and liked not a few,
but loved only one
and this toast is to you.

may your heart be light and happy,
may your smile be big and wide,
and may your pockets always have
a coin or two inside!

here's to a long life and a merry one.
a quick death and an easy one.
a pretty girl and an honest one.
a cold pint--and another one!

my God

2006-09-22T22:07:00.000-05:00

my God can make really cool formations with clouds and awesome effects when He combines them with the sun. i've been looking at the clouds recently and God has shown me some pretty amazing stuff. i only wish i had a camera so you could see what i've seen, but a picture just wouldn't do it justice. it gives me a peace knowing that my God made them for me.

how long has it been?

2006-09-15T16:47:00.000-05:00

too long. right?

visitor

2006-08-21T16:48:00.000-05:00

wow, what a weekend.

friday night i hung with ex-roomie david. we watched a movie and played some halo. almost felt like old times until i had to go to bed and he had to go home.

saturday, i got up at 5:30 to drive down to chambana for the MCAT. it was going just fine, everything under control until the second writing section when: BREEEEE! BREEEEE! BREEEEE! yeah, the fire alarm went off. i stopped the time, collected all materials, and sent everyone outside. about ten minutes later, we were given the all-clear to go back in and some of the examinees started to take their seats when: BREEEEE! BREEEEE! BREEEEE! yeah, it went off again. we still had all materials so i sent them back outside. another five minutes and we went back in. i talked to a fireman and he told me it was a faulty circuit and it could possibly keep happening. bleh. finally got them all back in, handed out materials, and restarted the exam. the fire alarms didn't go off again, but two cell phones did in the last section. i clearly stated they had to be turned off, but some people don't listen. since i had them bring them to the front of the room, i couldn't tell whose they were. later that day, i went to mike, cameron, josh and kyle's castle. it's a very nice place! then we went over to shaker, played a few card games and then a rousing game of i've never (i didn't break any chairs).

sunday was a packed church at champaign with all the returning students, new students, new students' parents, and of course the locals. lucy and i helped set up for the picnic by moving tables to our area. later, a bunch of guys played some ultimate frisbee which ended up being a blowout. pff.

good times, good times.

there and back again

2006-08-09T18:40:00.000-05:00

so i'm finally back in bloomington/normal after being gone for four years. i moved in last saturday to the crossings. with the help of jay, mom, dad, neal, natalie, will, marcy, megan, traci and kaitlyn. i am much endebted to their help. i met my new roommates will, brad and durelle. swell guys, all around.

sunday was yet another successful ac wedding. and monday, i tied up loose ends back in champaign including carpet cleaning, cancelling cable, changing address at bank, coffee with red scott and supper with ray and katrina. tuesday, i was fortunate enough to be able to sleep in, then some shopping and that was it. today, you can read about here. it's my new work blog. i'll try to keep it up to date.

other than that, feel free to stop by and check out my new place: #117. it's kicking.

p.s. morgan, you're more intuitive than that. i'm sure you can figure out the counter.

nightmares and dreamscapes

2006-08-04T10:03:00.000-05:00

well, that last post was great fun! thanks everyone for admitting to your own weird little quirks.

i had an interesting dream a couple nights ago that i'd like to share and it goes like this:

i was in a really big, fancy hotel. for awhile, i was just walking around the different floors. then i got down to the lobby area and it turns out that there was something going on in the big conference room with lots of people. i was walking towards it and i noticed that they had metal detectors by the doors to the outside, which made me think that there were celebrities present. this strange little guy comes up to me and he looks a little nervous. then he asks me if i would carry his gun past the metal detectors. this is weird because we're both already past the metal detectors and inside the hotel. we could easily just walk into the conference room. i gave him a rather emphatic "NO" and i instantly realize that he's going to shoot me because i said "no." i try to run, but he has already shot me once in the head. the next thing i know is that i'm face down on the carpet and i can't move. i feel that i'm dying so i close my eyes. i open them, but i'm not dead. i'm in a room with a few people that i know (i can't recall the names or faces) and someone saying that i was lucky to get shot in the head and still survive...

so that's pretty much it. i was shot in the head and i survived. the strange thing about this dream is that it wasn't a nightmare. it didn't scare me or wake me up in a cold sweat, even after i had been shot and thought i was dead. i can't interpret dreams or anything, but i feel like this means something.

we're all just a little bit crazy

2006-07-27T14:31:00.000-05:00

this post will be dedicated to the little part of everyone that's just a little bit obsessive-compulsive. i'll list mine and you all can list yours (though there's no way yours are as weird as mine).

small, shelled candy (m&m's, skittles, etc...): i have to have an even number in my mouth. i chew half with one side of my mouth and the other half with the other side. i try to do four every time, so when i do four, then i can't have two of the same color on the same side of my mouth. for example, if i pulled out two greens, a blue and a red, i could do green-blue and green-red but not green-green and blue-red. if i pull out three or four of the same color, i will drop them back in until i get an acceptable combination. if there are only three or five left, i will bite the odd one in half with my front teeth and half goes on each side. sometimes, i will just pour a bunch into my mouth. this is only acceptable if i split the volume between the sides of my mouth. the colors rule does not apply if there are only three or five left or if i'm eating them in the dark or if i eat a bunch.
pretzel rods: i always bite with my molars and try to split the rod lengthwise.
regular pretzels: they're shaped after monk boys praying. if you think of them this way then the boy's elbows go into my mouth first.
stepping on cracks: i try to avoid stepping on cracks for ease of mind. if i do step on a crack with one foot, then i must step on another crack with the other foot in the (almost) exact part of the foot that first stepped on a crack. for example, if i step on a crack with the ball of my left foot, then i must step on a crack with the ball of my right foot to feel balanced. i cannot step on a crack with the heel of my right foot, unless i then counter it with a crack with the heel of my left foot and then a crack with the ball of my right foot. this phenomenon only happens when i walk by myself or if (while walking with others) i'm conscious of it.
stairs: when going up or down stairs, i count the number of stairs. for stairs i use often, i know then exact number of stairs. the stairs on the north side of my building has 2, small landing, 21, 2nd floor, 9, small landing, 9, and third floor. the south side: 18, 2nd floor, 9, small landing, 9, and third floor. at work in the stairwell between the basement and 1st floor: 10, small landing (ground level), 9, and first floor. the back stairwell at work has 10. the front of the building has 6. i prefer an even number of stairs so i can take them two at a time and not worry about leftovers. for an odd-number of stairs, i will take the first step by itself and then the rest two at a time. same rule applies as with cracks while walking: only happens when alone or when i'm conscious of it. if i zone out during a conversation while walking over many cracks or while going up/down stairs, this is probably why.
radio volume: this isn't so prominent anymore now that i have a different radio. i had a cd player in my truck that used numbers for volume. i had to leave the volume on a number ending in 0, 2, 5, or 7. nothing else felt right.

just typing these makes me realize how weird i can be. they're not too extreme so that if i don't flick a light switch on and off 27 times before i leave a room or else my family will die. that kind needs professional help. no, these are just little things that i just can't help doing. i can't imagine anyone else's being as weird as mine without seeking help, but i look forward to reading them!

p.s. if you don't understand any of these, ask me in person next time you see me. for the first three, i require that you supply the m&m's (plain) or pretzels.

pinchy

2006-07-24T15:20:00.000-05:00

yeah, it was a fantastic weekend! friday started off with looking at houses to rent in bloomington-normal. they were pretty small, but one stood out from the rest. it was a brick 3-bedroom house in northwest normal. really close to the crossings, looks pretty nice. still waiting on word from my potential roomies...

later friday was a Bible study at natalie and wendy's given by byron stoller based mostly on philippians 4 and the topic of true rejoicing. no astonishingly new revelations, but it was a good reminder (matthew 21:17). afterwards, there was much chatting around the table until the wee hours. (i hope someone used and appreciated the ping-pong supplies.)

saturday marked the start of my family vacation weekend. we all met at matthiessen state park for hiking and a picnic. after lunch, the hiking turned a little more extreme for kyle and i as we crossed in uncharted territory across the stream. my most dangerous moment was holding on to an exposed tree root to travel across a rock face. i had a small shelf to put my feet on, but not big enough to travel without my hands holding on to something. i was about 15 feet above the water (2 feet deep) and i travelled horizontally about 12 feet. a few members of my family looked on.

later that evening, we dined at red lobster. since my parents footed the bill, neal and i split a lobster, crab legs, and some jumbo shrimp. both of us have had shrimp before, but the crab legs and lobster was new. it was fantastic, but i still think shrimp is a better seafood (according to my taste buds). the evening rounded out with chips, salsa, dark m&m's, cookies, etc...and less than quality sleep.

sunday church was spent in bradford where part of the wettstein family managed to fill an entire bench (as usual). after church, we went to les and barb fehr's and swam in their pool and talked about show chickens(?). supper was enjoyed by all at pizza hut italian bistro and then some tearful goodbye's as chad, janice and sons headed back up across the border.

the rest of the evening, i spent at natalie's with natalie, traci and neal playing true colors, which included a trip down memory lane. i finally made it back to my apartment around 1:30. i found a couple new vomit splotches on the pavement (courtesy of our under-neighbors and their guests) and this morning i discovered the back tire of my bike badly bent. investigations are ongoing and no suspects have been questioned yet.

enough about me. how was your weekend?

google

2006-07-21T09:33:00.000-05:00

so i finally figured out how to get a google email address. and then i figured out you can personalize your google search page. i love it! i changed the google logo to something snowy and added quite a few add-ons like a binary clock and links to my favorite comic strips and a verse-of-the-day. it's pretty great and i'd recommend it to anyone.

at work this week, we finally got our modular furniture put in. our office looks so professional now. it's pretty amazing the steps that we've gone through in the past 12 months to turn this office around. and i have gotten to see most of it except maybe the finishing touches. that reminds me: my last day of work here is august 4th. and then i move on the 5th (not sure exactly where yet, but probably bloomington). and then i start work at masters bros as an electrician. i'll be starting at the bottom of the totem pole and working without air conditioning. later today i'm going to drive around bloomington, checking out some houses for rent. hopefully neal will be able to move in with me. anyone know any guy looking to move to bloomington in august and need a place to live? let me know.

last night was katrina's last night in chambana so sam and pam furrer had a brat cookout at his house. fantastic brats! and then we watched the last four minutes plus overtime of the illinois-arizona game for old times sake. sam and pam always invite the whole u of i yg out to watch the illinois basketball games at their house. good times, good times. anyhoo, i was riding my bike home from work yesterday and it really hit me: in two weeks, i'll be leaving u of i and urbana and champaign behind. it actually made me a little sad to think about because i've really come to love this place. i've been here long enough that i've seen people and places grow and i know what it was like before certain buildings were added or remodeled. i know this campus like the back of my hand. it's going to be sad to leave so i'll have to come down and visit often. [sigh] so many memories...

belated

2006-07-14T09:38:00.000-05:00

ah, i like one-word titles. i can't begin to describe how much i like one-word titles. for starters...eh, never mind.

so i remembered starting this blog some time last summer but i wasn't sure of the exact date. i looked it up and yep...i missed it. it was july 9. so happy belated first birthday to my blog! i feel like i should celebrate with cake, but i guess i just had some on saturday (leftover from austin's birthday). i suppose i'll just celebrate with a jimmy john's sandwich. i'd love to share it with you all and so would my blog, but you don't live around me so it's just not feasible. i guess i'll just eat it all myself.

italia!

2006-07-10T11:48:00.000-05:00

the mini world cup is over as well as the real world cup as well as zinedine zidane's career and respect.

the mini world cup was a blast! the netherlands played four games on saturday and made it to the semi-finals on sunday (due to a forfeit from england). the final game was between spain and angola (pronounced an-goooooooooooooooooal-a!) but we left as they were starting so i don't know who won. garrison didn't play on sunday so caleb filled in for him. overall, we played pretty well for none of us ever having played real games against decent soccer players. we weren't very good at passing or shooting, but somehow we managed to go 1-1-2 in group play and give angola a tough time (draw in group play and losing in the semi-finals). anyhoo, my leg muscles want to take a few personal days off, but i won't let them so they've reacted by only working at half capacity. and my new cleats tore up my toes a bit with blisters. i also got a nice grass burn on my left knee in the first game and then kept falling on it in later games. heh, i don't think i can do any physical activity without drawing blood. i won't let that stop me though. never!

the real world cup ended with an exciting penalty kick shoot-out between italy and france. people expected me to cheer for france because i can kind of speak french and i was there for four weeks in 2003, etc...but i know and like the italian team much better. i was a little nervous for the penalty kicks because italy doesn't have a good world cup record for penalty kicks (0-3 before sunday). a little controversy was the "foul" that led to zidane's penalty kick in the seventh minute. i don't think materazzi touched malouda. i think he just fell. the ref made up for it later though by letting a real foul inside the box go. and zidane! what an ugly display of poor sportmanship! so sad.

world cup

2006-07-03T10:28:00.000-05:00

i have a confession to make: i love soccer. i've been watching the world cup pretty closely and i don't know of anyone (so far) that has been as into it as i have. i've talked to a few people that have watched a few games or rooted for a team for awhile, but nothing like me. my love for soccer almost makes me feel unpatriotic because people are usually disgusted and wonder why i don't watch american football or baseball, the real american sports. i think soccer has some of the best athletes in the world. other sports have a lot of stopping and standing around and "time-outs" where everyone can catch their breath. soccer does not. the action is non-stop and the only times the clock stops is at halftime and the end of the game. i don't understand how people can watch baseball and golf and then call soccer boring. maybe the lazy ones feel guilty for not exercising when they see how fit soccer players are.

anyhoo, enough ranting. the world cup this year has been fantastic to watch (despite the record number of yellow and red cards). i've enjoyed every minutes of it (except when usa lost). i've also decided to take part in a mini world cup hosted in wolcott, indiana by renae bahler's brother (whose name i do not know). the teams consist of three players each and each team will represent a country. my team signed up late so we ended up picking the netherlands as our country. i'm going to end up making a shirt that says "van nistelrooy" on the back and #9 on it. he plays for manchester united in club play and is the netherlands best striker. my other teammates are garrison gudeman and austin waibel. we're just doing this to have a good time. so if you're not doing anything this weekend, you can come out to wolcott and cheer us on!

um, hi

2006-06-23T12:46:00.000-05:00

it's been a couple weeks so i figure i should post something. yet i have nothing to post. so...........um, hi! i'm scott. have we met?

dancing queen

2006-06-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

do you ever wake up to the most random song in your head? somehow, i have "dancing queen" by abba in my head and i can't get it out! maybe i have to dance it out...

the maintenance guy came to fix our dishwasher today, turns out it was just a sliver of wood stuck in the drain. i didn't think we owned any wooden utensils until i noticed a wooden spoon on our counter. huh. then we started talking about captain morgan and how his last job was bar securty (even though he's about my size). then he told me a story about when he was going into a bar (long time ago) and the bouncer was a huge african-american and the guy in line in front of him was a small japanese guy. the bouncer says he doesn't like "orientals" so he can't come in. the japanese guys starts pleading with him to just let him go in and get his friends and they'll leave. the bouncer says no and puts a hand on his shoulder. the japanese guy tells him to take it please three times and when the bouncer doesn't, he sweeps the hand off his shoulder and strikes the bouncer, knocking him backwards. the bouncer tries to hit him back, but the japanese guy is much quicker and ends up knocking him down the stairs (this was on the second floor at the top of the stairs). the bouncer is madder than ever and is still trying to land a punch on this little japanese guy who keeps knocking him backwards. all the while, the japanese guy is saying sorry and asking if he can just get his friends and leave. the bouncer is mad and saying things like i'm going to kill you so the japanese guy knocks the bouncer into the street, but since there's traffic, he quick grabs him and throws him back onto the sidewalk. the bouncer still won't give up so the japanese guy uses cotta or kota (???) or something involving hitting nerve simplexes thus rendering the bouncer unconcious. he revives the bouncer, but it takes awhile for the bouncer to be completely coherent so the japanese guy goes up and gets his friends and leaves. pretty cool story. then the maintenance guy tells me about this martial art (cotta) and how it's illegal to teach it because of too many accidental deaths. anyhoo, that's my story for the day.

oblivjobshoutdoku

2006-06-05T00:30:00.000-05:00

titles should be made at the end of the post.

anyhoo, i just got oblivion for my pc and already i've played 16 hours and david has played 7. we both love it. it's such a huge game and the gameplay is really open. and the graphics are just gorgeous on my new computer. oh and a few hours of halo 2 in there as well.

i just got a letter (yesterday, but i was too busy playing oblivion to get it then) from adaptasoft. letters are never a good sign, especially when they use the word "however" in it. so it looks like i'll still be in urbana this summer, but i'll really have to limit my oblivion playing time so that i can keep searching for a job. maybe i'll hire a head hunter and let him do all the work. there's still a good chance i'll move in with caleb (it's the only place i have to go).

good news with my side projects though! i finally succeeded with my first version of a shoutbox/guestbook. you can view it here. and for all you sudoku fans, i also made a solver here. i hope you all post something on my shoutbox. i added a lot of (what i think are) cool features. and it was challenging and stimulating and fun. they may run a little slow, but that's because i turned my older computer into a webserver and that's what they're running off of. just be patient, they'll load. let me know if you run into any bugs (please be detailed) or if you have any other ideas you think i should add. they may look pretty plain, but it took a lot of work to get all the stuff running in the background. next, i think i'm going to try to learn how to do passwords and usernames.

it's been awhile

2006-06-01T22:28:00.000-05:00

wow, so much to talk about. let's begin...

first of all, second interview. i think it went pretty well. i haven't heard anything yet, but hopefully soon. and i had a good time in west lafayette including seeing my possible future townhouse. lunch at triple xxx and supper at scotty's. halo2 for a few hours and oblivion all night long. i slept for an hour and a half and then drove an hour and a half back to urbana and went to work to this:

a pretty normal day, work-wise. the weather was getting frightful. during my lunch (2-230), i heard the tornado sirens going off but didn't think much of it. i got back to work to a brown out and tons of people crowded in our basement. some of our computers were off; some were not. all of the lights were off. our single test-taker's computer had shut down so katrina was trying to figure out how to restore power so he could finish. that's about the time the fire alarms went off and we all had to go outside (to the impending tornado). there was about 100 people in the building and we split up among the nearby buildings. oh yeah, the fire alarm went off because there was smoke coming from a dungeon room in the basement, like where the trolls scoop coal to keep the building going. turns out a motor had burnt up (because of the brown out or causing the brown out, i'm not sure which). well, we waited for about 45 minutes until the firemen gave an all clear but by then the whole building's power had been shut down and we were only allowed inside to get our stuff and then we were told to just go home. so we figured out how our test-taker could reschedule and sent him off and then katrina stayed to document the problem and i went home with an extra hour and a half off work early. i made it till 730pm when i crashed till about 600am and got up to:

i went in to work early today to make sure everything would work when we rebooted it all. they had restored power 1100pm the night previously. everything worked fine. we even had 14 total people today. although i made a mistake when i accidentally pulled the power on the file server, thus stopping everyone's test (7 at the time). we rebooted all computers and restarted the tests and they were all able to pick up where they left off (oops!). then i set out to fix station #1 which has been "broken" for months and we're trying to figure out what's wrong with it and get it fixed so we can return the loaner. we called prometric a few weeks ago and they tried to troubleshoot it and then told us the network card was bad. we found that it was under warranty so we called hp. they tried to troubleshoot it today and then told us that nothing was wrong with the machine, but it was a server permissions problem. conflicting stories. i believe hp and tomorrow, i get to call prometric back tomorrow and tell them they were wrong. should be pretty fun. oh and our new guy came in today. his name is brian and he's a senior in poly sci. i'm not sure what "senior" means in the summer. poor guy was in for 4 hours and he read procedure manuals the entire time. it's our own brand of hazing. heh. so i finally came home to:

my new computer! i received it last thursday and put it together myself. no problems except my $45 heatsink does not fit on my motherboard (it says it does...). and then i couldn't figure out why my ide channels weren't showing up on my bios. turns out i needed to install raid drivers for channels 2 and 3 to work. got it working on friday and got winxp installed but still was having problems. i gave up at 400am saturday morning and slept 4 hours. jay and i helped sue move which took about 5 hours while neal fixed my computer and reinstalled winxp. then off to kaitlyn's house where i pretty much crashed. next day was church, family supper, traci's grad party, megan's and a "haunted" house. but all of this is on the side panel.

anyhoo, this is freakishly long so i'll cut 'er off. please pray for me to seek God's will with this job!

p.s. replies to all previous comments are in this post's comments

non-specific

2006-05-23T15:26:00.000-05:00

my blogging world has been kind of slow lately. except for the arrival of three new bloggers! check out andy, cody, and mike on the left side!

anyhoo, the interview with adaptasoft went pretty well. well enough, in fact, that i got a call back and a second interview on tuesday, may 30th. we'll see how it goes from there. a big thank you to caleb for hosting me last wednesday and thursday (and to austin, luke, gar, ryan, britni, abby).

you may have notice the new background (actually, the lack thereof). what i wanted to do just doesn't seem possible with my limited knowledge of html and css. maybe iframes? i'm still looking for an apt replacement of the unknown hanzi. maybe if i found a chinese dictionary, i could spend the rest of my life and part of someone else's looking for a match.

i just realized that my posts are rarely specific to a topic. if i did that, i'd have a lot of really short posts. good thing i don't, huh?

i hate titles

2006-05-08T12:33:00.000-05:00

well, that didn't work. apparently my plea for nymity spurred your anonymity. for what? spite? it doesn't really mean anything if i don't know who you are. hmmm...whatever.

interview at adaptasoft is set for the 18th of may. sue will be gone starting that day through june 1st to pack, move and unpack. hopefully katrina and abbie will be able to cover that thursday. abbie was able to extend my stay for another three weeks! that means through june 2nd. probably the same hours each week that i have been working, but three extra weeks! she's still fighting to keep me here as long as possible.

this past weekend went pretty well. thanks to megan for planning it! just a few points:

arriving late and hungry
eating spaghetti from a bowl during snack-time
seeing the "phoenicians"
losing the backplate of my phone
late night at aupps'
decorating cars
late late night at aupps'
seeing and talking to people like allison hoerr and andy hoerr at peoria church
painting
club #1: white noses
more painting
club #2: slapped in the leg with a paint stirrer
done painting!

good times, good times. anyhoo, to all: have a great week and keep your heart with all diligence! and for some: good luck with finals!

personality windows

2006-05-04T11:11:00.000-05:00

johari window
nohari window

one last thing. you gotta identify yourself. there's already some names of people that i don't know who they are. i mean, i know people by those names (mostly) but not specifically who it is. you don't have to explain why you chose what you did; i just want to know who you are. thanks.

interview

2006-05-03T19:40:00.000-05:00

so i got an interview. it's with a company called adaptasoft in none other that the popular town of francesville, indiana. some of you may know of it. my parents came down to visit me on monday past and they came up with the idea. their presence is pretty much the only reason i applied there. well, now they're calling abot an interview and i looked into the company a little more and none of the positions are close to my interest. i'm still going to go to the interview for practice and just to see what they really offer.

the other thing. the l.a. thing. i wouldn't have any income for the three month camp and it costs a few grand to fund those three months including room and board and other fees. so not in june. maybe later in the future.

also, luke finally guessed the big difference i was so excited about. i used percentage widths instead of fixed widths. still working on the background change. it should come soon.

i'll never get out to...l.a.???

2006-04-29T15:49:00.000-05:00

so it's the weekend. it's almost 4pm and i'm still at work. oh well, i get off soon. tonight is the u of i invite. if you are sitting at home reading this right now (and it's not past sunday), then get off your rear and come visit us. you are officially invited. my two bros are coming down to visit (the only single ones left) so it should be an awesome time.

ok, so i got this lead on a job. it's kind of more of an internship (paid). plus a training camp. 3 months in sunny irvine, cali for the camp and then a 1 year internship at some major metropolis of my choice (chi-town then phyx). at the end i'll be a senior level LAN/WAN engineer making pretty good money (it IS senior level). so i'm going to apply for that, so if you could all pray for me with that, i'd appreciate it. thanks.

last guy's done. i gotta go.

ring toe?

2006-04-24T12:18:00.000-05:00

so i think i may have broken one of my toes on my right foot yesterday. and then i played sand volleyball for three hours. this marks the second time i have played sand volleyball with something possibly broken. last august, i played with a possibly broken nose and now my toe. i'm not sure what to call it. toes don't really have names like fingers do. if it were a hand, it'd be the ring phalange. here's a good picture:

also, i don't know if anyone noticed this, but i updated the look of my blog once again. it's hard to see it unless you're looking for it. if anyone cares to guess and find what it is, maybe i'll give a prize like a future blog post honoring you or a punch in the face or something. i'm also looking for a new background, so if the background changes, that isn't the new thing.

in work news, the mcat is over. in the end everything worked out fine. on saturday, i did have one short period where i couldn't find something that was needed for paperwork, but i found it. i was room supervisor with two proctors who had never worked the mcat before. but they're smart girls and they learned quickly. and i worked on sunday after church too. pretty much just sat with katrina (mann not stoller) and we did sudoku puzzles. good times, good times.

so volleyball was fun last night. we played for a whopping three hours of pure six-on-six. we had 17 people total, but we just rotated in. let's see if i can name everyone there:

from 709: Katrina Stoller, Jenny Wyss, Gab Roeschley
from 711: Jeremy Hodel, Jon Aupperle
from brown house: Brian Mariani, Matt Schrenk
from apt 5: Alyssa Leuthold
from apt 308: me
from stoughton: Loren Mogler
from apt 301: Michael Kaeb, Cameron Walder, Josh Steffen
from salt shaker: Bob Koch, Brian Sauder, Nic Rassi
from 9-to-5: Heather Messner

yep, that was it. i think i won all but one game and we played a lot of games. but it wasn't me, i credit it to heather and katrina (when the were on my team (i know, it shouldn't have been allowed)) and great teamwork. well, that's all i have for now.

schedule

2006-04-15T09:10:00.000-05:00

it has been brought to my attention that i don't update my daily schedule often enough. after much discussion with myself, i have decided to drop the daily schedule and pick up the weekly schedule. i don't have enough specifics to fill each day so i'm just going to give you roughly what i'm doing. so starting monday, or sunday, or maybe even later today, you'll see the new schedule.

and yeah, i know. this is a pretty boring post. not very interesting, not very cool. as my daily schedule still shows, i will be spending most of the day at work and since i only have the internet, i'll probably be reading about css stylesheets and javascript. so maybe something cool will come out of that.

anyhoo, i hope everyone has a fantastic easter!

one more

2006-04-11T14:47:00.000-05:00

ok, that's three of the four. there was one more announcement. it was kyle mckimmey (sp?) to someone i don't know. kudos to anyone that can name him.

also, check out my work project here: check it out! i've been working on it for the past week and it's a great exercise in html and css. major breakthroughs included image maps and css print styling. anyhoo, the basis of it is to show each building with possible testing rooms that we can use for national tests. my co-workers aren't as familiar with every building on campus as i am. so this is to show them where everything is. hint: click on areas of the maps to go deeper.

the first one

2006-04-09T15:51:00.000-05:00

who knows if there'll be more, but here's the first result of kup's prediction: brent young to janelle schlipf. i thought it was odd the whole schlipf family would be in champaign to watch janelle lead the easter program. most family members come to watch their loved ones perform not lead. anyhoo, the announcement clarified all that. at last i knew, brent is moving down to phoenix in september so morgan, it looks like you guys will have a new couple down there. i'll tell you more as i know more.

hola amigos

2006-03-29T15:09:00.000-06:00

first of all, i'm sorry i didn't post right away after getting back from mexico. i went home right away and then my computers required some maintenance. i should be up and running now. well, pretty close anyway. i guess bullets would be the popular thing to do here so in no particular order:

32 hours down, 30 hours back
el meatwagon
still don't know enough spanish to survive a week in madrid
getting to know everyone on the trip and even meeting new people
the schicks
brian's speeches
being sick and then suddenly not being sick
nurse nic
french fries for breakfast
about 40 fed-ex trucks to 1 ups truck
young fixing the shower head so that we got a nozzle instead of a mist
playing basketball with the kids
the kids think i look like someone on mexican cable television
dip-n-dots hail storm on the mountain
rainbow after the hail
going to church in a hoodie
still don't know enough spanish to survive a week in madrid
evening testimonies and devotions
bill's puzzle piece
special wednesday supper drink concoction made by jenny and i
joan leaving us to make wednesday lunch on our own
missing the play day because i was sick
josh's dropped ice cream
catholic guy rubbing the two plastic saints but ignoring the plastic Jesus
aupps yelling into the whisper thingy
manzanita
laying blocks (slow, but accurate!)
the bad corner that everyone avoided
pouring concrete into styrofoam walls
still don't know enough spanish to survive a week in madrid
josh's heatstroke
showing rhonda and laura how to skateboard
MI CORAZON!!!
kevin's unicorn song
bob taking brett's dragon kick
josh's thinking rap
clogging bob
mariani taking a bamboo to the face
photo shoot on the bus
the early morning meteorite
driving the sunrise shift both ways
mdx to keep me awake
aupps and michael, my awesome co-pilots
still don't know enough spanish to survive a week in madrid
the old guy teaching gab how to polka
breaking into hotel rooms with a credit card
how i still couldn't sleep on the makeshift van beds
naz and blanca
the pineapple preacher
"it's a mirage, you idiot!"

man, this got long. i guess this really was a great trip. it gets better every time i think about it. as far as i know, jenny is the only other trip member with a blog so i guess this is mostly so those who weren't on the trip know how it went.

mexican basketball

2006-03-16T15:11:00.000-06:00

i'm a little sad that i'm going to be in mexico or in transit to/from during most of the ncaa college basketball tournament. but going to mexico is a much better cause so i'm not going to skip. plus i already paid nic.

last weekend was great, watching the syracuse orangemen win three improbable victories to take the big east championship. oh yeah, caleb was here too watching alongside me. thursday thru saturday were three great days of college basketball conference tournaments. and today begins the ncaa tournament aka the big dance. i entered into three pools on facebook and so far (after only three games) i'm at the top of all three. after work today, i plan to spend the evening: watching basketball, packing for mexico, and possibly eating.

enough about college basketball, now on to magdalena, mexico. it's going to be great. i've never actually been to mexico the closest being tucson on family vacation '96. plus, i get to go with a fantastic group from u of i/parkland and it promises to be a great time. i'm a little nervous about speaking spanish since i don't even speak enough to survive a week in madrid. i'll just resort to french and get a lot of weird looks. the isu group is there right now so i hope they're not wrecking the place for us to fix up. nah, i'm sure they're having a great time and getting a lot accomplished.

anyhoo, i'll be offline for a week or so. (fri thru sat) hope everyone else has a great time in illinois!

feral children

2006-03-07T11:16:00.000-06:00

last week i stumbled upon a link on britni's blog that led me to here. and i was pretty bored at work so i read a lot of it. it's all really fascinating to me. i even read the first ten pages of doctor singh's journal about kamala and amala (found in 1920). it's amazing that even though kamala lived for 9 years after she was "liberated" she was never really able to talk. neither of them could walk upright and both preferred uncooked meat over cooked meat. very intriguing stuff. yeah, i don't really know much about it so there's not much to talk about here, but i recommend you go to the link above and read some stories.

otherwise, i'm sick. i have a cold. it's very annoying. i left work early yesterday and i didn't go today and i may not go tomorrow. i really need the hours though, so i won't skip all week. i just need to rest a few days to get better. i'm a little worried that i'm going to get a bunch of other people sick too and i don't want to do that. anyhoo, hope you're all having great weeks!

ten commandments

2006-02-22T12:48:00.000-06:00

many Christians cry and complain because the government won't allow us to put up the ten commandments in public schools. but what's the reasoning behind this? what does it mean for high school Christians?

the birth of a nation
let's go back to the beginning of our government. our founding fathers escaped away from an oppressive government to set up their own government. they were Christians and founded this nation believing in God. they also realized that they weren't the only ones being oppressed by their governments for their religion. they decided to keep church and state separate so that no one in this nation would feel the need to escape like they did. freedom of religion was also established because they didn't want to force people to be Christians. they wanted a land of freedom.

judges' decision
skip forward to modern times. many courts including the supreme court have ruled that the ten commandments in public schools is unconstitutional. their thinking behind this is that public schools are run by the government. if religious icons are placed inside public schools, then it means that the government supports them thus violating separation of church and state. private schools can still post whatever they want because they are not run by the government. the judges didn't do this because they hate Christians, they did it because it's the way our nation was founded.

work-around
to be able to post the ten commandments on the wall of a public school there are two choices: forfeit our freedom of religion and abide by a state religion (and hope that it's a doctrine of Christianity that is Biblically sound) OR give equal wall space to all religions including islam and satan worshippers. the problem with the first is the existance of so many religions in this country. many religious sects and groups would (and already have) resort to violence to promote their religion and destroy any others. no religion would be able to simply claim a majority thus resulting in many unhappy citizens and an oppressive government. bad idea. the second choice would not work either because of the same reason. if the ten commandments were allowed on the wall, then many other religions would put their beliefs on the wall. the ten commandments would be engulfed by the multitude of other religions, and the wall becomes a competition among religions to get the students' attention and draw them to a particular religion. i realize that this is essentially what quad-chalking and flyer hanging is on a college campus. the difference is that posters on high school wall involves overturning a major supreme court decision. this would draw national attention to the situation and many religions would jump at the opportunity to influence young minds with their religion. on college campuses, no one has complained loud enough so it is still permitted, though on a smaller, lesser-known level.

high school challenge
this should not be a problem but a challenge. this gives high school Christians opportunity to live their Christian lives louder rather than pointing to the poster on the wall and telling someone to live by that. quad-chalking and flyers on college campuses do not intend to convert people to Christianity alone, but they open doors for confused people to have someone to talk to about it and a Bible to turn to for answers. is it helpful for college Christians? yes. is it necessary to spread the Gospel? no. high school Christians have a high calling to live their lives by example because they don't have other ways to open doors to unbelievers.

so what?
so let's pray for high school Christians to let their lights shine, because our prayers and God's grace are the only help they get to share their faith with their classmates and teachers. what does this mean to us Christians who are past high school? if high school Christians who are generally young in their faith have a calling that high, where does that leave us older Christians who are in college or working? we each need to examine ourselves and find our own callings. God has a plan for each of us and it's not to sit back and let high school Christians or campus flyers do all the work. we each have our own work to do, but let's not forget to support the work of our fellow Christians.

these are just my thoughts on the subject. i'd love to hear comments, criticism, etc.

you can run, but you can't hide

2006-02-17T08:20:00.000-06:00

so i've had this webcam for a while now and i haven't really noticed any strange occurences. until lately. i've had this one person who will open my blog and keep it open for many hours per day. i thought that kind of strange especially since i didn't recognize the ip address. well, i used a few different methods of tracking down the ip address and it turns out that their isp is in madrid spain and that's as far as i got. so this is to my spanish watcher:

i know you're watching me. i hope you are only watching me for good reasons. who are you?
sé que usted me está mirando. espero que usted me esté mirando solamente por buenas razones. ¿quiénes son usted?

my spanish isn't too good, in fact it's almost non-existant since i took french in high school and college, but i hope the translation is good enough. i've also noticed a repeat watcher from the law building on the university of illinois campus using computer 211. luke has also confirmed this user on his blog as well. you can choose to remain anonymous, but i'm curious as to who you are. anyhoo, anonymous or not, you're all still free to continue watching me as much as you'd like, but don't be too shy to identify yourself either.

untitled

2006-02-13T13:07:00.000-06:00

remember when i said how much God is teaching me? well, it's been less than a week and it seems my whole world has changed. i don't want to go into any detail on my blog, but i'll set up a scenario for you:

i'm on top of a spiritual mountain. i can't see any other mountains higher than me. i'm feeling great! then i decide to look down at my feet and i see that i'm not on the mountain anymore, but a cloud and it's starting to dissipate. as i'm watching, it disappears altogether and i fall into a deep, deep valley. i sit and cry about my wounds for awhile, but then i see another mountain. it's higher and steeper than the one i was just on. do i climb the mountain i was just on because the new one looks hard or do i try this new mountain anyway? i choose the new one because i don't want to fall off that cloud again. i pick myself up and start climbing and soon i've already climbed higher than the previous mountain and i still have much farther to go. i can't even see the peak, but the thought of it excites me. looking back, i can see that i was on that other mountain for a reason: to fall and be broken in the valley. without being in that valley, i would not have seen the bigger mountain. this has truly been a fantastical adventure.

well, well, well

2006-02-08T11:58:00.000-06:00

it's been awhile since i've updated, but that's because there's really not much to talk about. i'll tell you what i can...

work: work has been crazy! i put in 39 hours last week! i still don't get paid until the 22nd due to a paperwork/nessie glitch. with the brand new computer science building, you'd think this university would have some better software to run things. banner and nessie are just sore spots with most university employees. anyhoo, it's been pretty easy working here and decent hours. even with a full week last week, i still enjoy working here. i haven't heard anything about adding tuesday/thursday nights yet so i still get those free. i don't know if we will because it's really starting to slow down. we have nine spots available for each testing session and there was only one person this morning and only two people this afternoon. sloooow.

career search: i've been pretty busy with work and extracurricular stuff so i haven't had much time for this recently. although, last night i got on monster.com and careerbuilder.com and looked around. i sent out a bunch of resumes, mostly to companies in denver and phoenix. i'll try to send some more out tonight during the evening session (i work till nine). so that's going pretty well.

friends & fun: most of you have probably read erin's post about snowboarding up at granite peak. we all helped teach erin, and i don't know about travis or jaclyn, but i know i got a few wounds from it. then near the end, i hit the biggest jump i have ever hit. the kind you have to be going reeeeally fast to be able to hit the landing. well, i hit it twice and i wasn't going fast enough either time so i wrecked on the table top but only after i was about ten feet in the air. pretty sweet. then neal came down to visit the next weekend for the illinois game (shocking loss!) and the super bowl. good times, good times. and tomorrow, caleb and garrison are coming to visit through sunday (although i'm going home on sunday too).

spiritual: God has been amazing recently. i moved my devotions to mornings since i don't usually have to work mornings. He's been teaching me so much about trust and contentment. the only way to be truly content is to trust. there are always things or people i may not like or get along with, but God has his purpose for me in that place. it's especially important to me now that i'm looking for a job, most likely in a larger city away from all my friends and family. i just pray and trust that God will lead me where He wants me.

well, look at that. i did have a lot to say. i'm sure i could come up with more, but this is long enough for now.

caleb

2006-02-01T21:37:00.000-06:00

check out caleb's sweet new webcam! my influence is spreading yet again!

results

2006-01-18T13:34:00.000-06:00

the results are in: normal. my heart is normal. i'm not surprised, but i am relieved. i certainly don't feel normal. although my head does feel better after five straight days of withdrawal headaches. that's pretty much all i have today.

oh yeah, i went snowboarding on monday in 40-degree slush and i learned a new trick: 180-to-switch-50-50 on a box. i would have kept practicing it, but it was getting warmer and the rails were getting sticky so i just practiced 180's on slush jumps the rest of the day.

and last night erin got this new game that had something to do with napoleon dynamite and his liger. it's kind of like pictionary, but you have to take two animal cards and draw one animal with the characteristics of both animals before time runs out. i thought it was pretty fun even though my team lost. of course it was just me and logan versus erin, alyssa and travis. when the numbers are that small, they can make a difference. but i don't mind losing. i thought it was more fun than pictionary.

anyhoo, turns out caffeine is giving me heart palpitations. i haven't had any caffeine drinks since last tuesday. i'm doing pretty well. thanks for all your prayers.

tests of the heart

2006-01-12T11:31:00.000-06:00

so in a couple of hours i'll be in a hospital, but i'm just getting some tests done. i'm getting a tsh and an echo. i don't really know what they check for or how they're done. my doctor thinks that it's caffeine giving me heart palpitations, but he wants to make sure so he's having me do these tests. again, i'm quite nervous, but it'll probably end up being caffeine.

i want a second opinion

2006-01-06T18:00:00.000-06:00

yeah, i slept before the flight. a little less than two hours and i still got up in time. i made it back safely. had a fun lunch on thursday and watched a great illinois basketball game thursday night!

today. today started ok. got up earlier than i prefer. waited for an hour at the doctor's office. and then he gives me the worst news ever. my heart "is probably normal" but my heart palpitations are the result of: (silence, please).....

caffeine. yeah. my liquid diet is killing me. i trusted it to keep me awake through long nights and what does it do? it stabs me in the back...of the heart. apparently i've been experiencing caffeine highs. he wants me to go cold turkey. i say no way. i'll have to wean myself, but i don't think i'll ever be able to give it up. the day has not been going well after that, but it's getting better.

but i don't want to sleep

2006-01-04T04:34:00.000-06:00

i'm only awake right now because i'm afraid i'll sleep through my alarm and miss my plane. bad stuff heppens if you miss your plane, or so i've been told by the gremlins. i am at sam's still in phoenix (glendale really) and our plane leaves in five hours. we're trying to get bumped so we can get cheap/discount tickets for nathan and natalie's wedding in april. that would be sweet.

i had a great time in arizona but i'll talk about that later. i'm not going back to my apartment until friday because i have a doctor's appointment on friday morning at 9:15. it's about my heart. i've been having these "attacks" for the past five or so years. about one every six to eight weeks. my mom found out while i was having one on the 25th of december so she decided i needed to see the doctor. it only lasts about 5 minutes and it consists of: my heart beats weirdly (harder not faster); i feel really hot; i feel weak; and my hands shake. i'm not too worried because i've had them for many years and i don't feel any different. yet i'm still a little anxious to find out what it is. i could use the prayers too if you feel so inclined.

anyhoo, have a great rest of break to all. i'm not really on break but i kind of am since my office is under reconstruction. but no more school! maybe i should have a graduation party so we can all have cake and you all can give me cards.

happy days....heeeeeeey!

2005-12-23T14:35:00.000-06:00

whooooo! four days in colorado and now the midwest will never be the same! that was one of the best vacations ever. great powder up in those mountains with fresh snow for three days and the sun came out on the last run of the fourth day. typical day:

7:30am - get up
8:00am - breakfast
8:30am - get dressed
9:30am - arrive at copper mountain
10:00am - snowboarding!!
12:30pm - lunch
1:30pm - more snowboarding!!
4:00pm - head back to condo
4:30pm - shower
5:30pm - supper
6:30pm - games/tv/relax
11:00pm - bed

many good memories in there. especially the fence jump. i won't go into detail here, but ask me sometime in person and i'll tell you all about it. and the 180's! doing a 180 seemed to be the theme of the week. it's all warren, nate and travis tried to do. by the end of the third day, we had developed a run that we just kept repeating and it went something like this:

1. take the american flyer lift up
2. down a really steep and powdery slope
3. take the sierra lift to the top
4. jump the fence and fly through a small powdery bowl
5. great powder and sweet kickers through the far west run
6. merge onto a green with nice kickers and tree glade excursions
7. take the timberline lift back up
8. traverse over a little ways
9. go through the witch's cove tree glade
10. down to the terrain park
11. hit the incline box and high box
12. go fast down a green while practicing switch
13. back at american flyer lift

each run took about 1.5 hours. so it's basically this: american flyer, steep, sierra, fence jump, powder, kickers, switch, timberline, traverse, tree glades, terrain park, switch, speed. we did a lot of other stuff the first three days too. warren, nate and i found some sweet glade runs. and some not so sweet glade runs. we got separated from the other three at the top and ended up in a major glade run with powder past the knees. you had to keep moving or else sink. getting stuck in powder is not very fun; it takes a lot of strength to get out of it. powder is great until you get stuck in it.

anyhoo, it was a sweet vacation, a perfect ending to my college career. oh yes, i am now a college graduate. very exciting. i talked to motorola a couple weeks ago and apparently, i don't have a definite interview. my resume is before the hiring board and they decide whether i get an interview or not. i'll call again next week to check for any news. otherwise, i'll still be working at the testing center (with major pay and hour increase).

that is the summary of my first december vacation. details on the second to come afterwards. i still don't know what the plan is. should be fun though!

have a merry Christmas everyone! and a happy new year!

12/26/05 edit: jaclyn went too and there was much rejoicing!

Bad Days :0(

2005-12-14T23:16:00.000-06:00

Thursday~ Worked on my project all day. We didnt' make much progress for 8 1/2 hours. I took a break at 8:00 p.m. to watch the illini game. I had arranged to meet over at apt. 5 to watch the game so i ran all the way from lab to their place only to realize that they had switched it to my place, so then i ran about 2 blocks back to my place. Needless to say i was not a happy camper.

Friday~ I had my demo for my project. It failed.

Saturday~ I worked. then later on i went out to Erin's house where we had a Chirstmas party. There were 10 people involved...Me, Travis, Dave, Martin and Stephen and then Erin, Jaclyn Trisha, Alyssa and Meg. It was a good time. Not such a bad day after all :0)

Sunday~ Church, Christmas Caroling, Chili Supper, work Christmas party, watched Dukes of Hazzard with Erin, not really though because she fell aslseep. then i studied all night for my final monday.

Monday~ Took an 8:00 am final, then worked a final, relaxed and then watched the Longest Yard while trying to study.

Tuesday~ Got up early to work on the report for the demo that failed. I didn't get the report until later that night and by that time it was late. :0(

Wednesday~ Slept in all day, fixed Erin's computer from about 4-6:30 and then 9-10. And right now i am sleeping while someone else is writing this post!

Have a good break!
Scottie Poo

it's about time

2005-12-05T15:29:00.000-06:00

yes, it's about time for a new post. i finally updated the blog links on the left-hand side with a couple new ones and a correction. there's really not much new to say except that i've been pretty busy with projects and the social world of the u of i young group.

school projects: i'm down to about 1.0 projects left. that's right. 1.0. that's about 0.1 of one project (almost done!) and about 0.9 of the other one. i tried to get the first one done and out of the way this weekend, but i'm still having problems figuring it out. it'll come together eventually. the other one has a long way to go yet. it's more like 0.5 left because we already did the design document and presentation so all we have is the demo and final paper. but i'm going to leave it at 1.0 because the design document and presentation don't count much towards the project. i also have three exams left (or maybe two) during finals week.

side projects: burning dvd's for caroline to give her sister for christmas. it's a lot more complicated than i originally thought. so don't ask me to do any of them for you until at least after the new year. other side project: filling my desk with mountain dew cans. i've got eleven so far. (all empty of course) i've got another 48 sitting beside my desk just waiting to be drunk.

just gone by: saturday snowboarding and sunday supper and games at jeanne's. what a great weekend. the "snow" was filled with ice chunks. the only good snow was on the rail and jump run. perfect. i hit the funbox with a backside boardslide and still managed to land it once despite the horrible landing. i also managed to hit a longer rail with a 50-50 going pretty fast and still landed it despite not being able to see exactly how far down the snow was. it started snowing around1:00 so it was a sweet hour of boarding with fresh powder. then i noticed it was coming down a little too much so i figured we'd better leave before we got stuck there. and then i began my five hour drive home! it's worse with the first few snowfalls of the season because everyone forgets how to drive in snow and so they panic and drive really slow. supper and games at jeanne's was great. really good lasagna and fun games including intense dutch blitz with an amazing lack of marrying; travis winning egyptian rat screw and no one else being surprised; and ending with two wild games of spoons! i've never played with rules before and i'll never play without them again.

coming up: christmas shopping and vacations. i've got one christmas this saturday and another on the 24th. i really need to get the first gift soon, but the other one can wait. i'm not too worried about it selling out. i could probably pick it up on the 24th with no problem. vacations include snowboarding in colorado for four wonderful days in a free condo on keystone (though we'll be boarding at copper). i really don't know where any resorts are in colorado. i should probably look that up soon. vacae #2 is sunny and warm phoenix! looking forward to seeing morgan, sam, andy, and natalie again!

well, that's pretty much it and i know this is long, but it's easier to do it this way rather than tons of short posts.

long one

2005-11-26T22:51:00.000-06:00

so this one has to cover almost two weekends and the week between.

but first: thanks to all the prayers surrounding my interview. it especially nice to hear from my dad on here. i haven't heard any news this past week so hopefully, they'll call with more information this coming week.

i barely remember last weekend, but i'll do my best. started off with cookout at maurer's in arrowsmith on friday night to see aaron back in the state. saturday was the football game against northwestern. it was cold! very cold! movie on saturday night, church on sunday, supper at jeanne's (good supper! i actually enjoyed the mashed potatoes!). sunday night went to purdue to hang with mr. wuetrich and mr. waibel. played some good halo, had a great sandwich at panera thanks to mr. klotzle.

back on tuesday, went to the mall with erin to shop for christmas list items. shortly afterwards was treated to o'charley's and the illini basketball game by kup's family. the game was a sellout and a blowout. we won by 34 points! wednesday, i worked and then packed and then headed home for more halo with the gridley guys.

for thanksgiving, mom made a cornish game hen for each of us (neal, jay, mom, dad, me) and i ate the whole thing! i was the only one to do that, although everyone else was done and just watching me for at least half of it. relaxed, napped, ate some more, and more relaxing.

friday, i went shopping with my mom to get all the after thanksgiving sales. she wasn't going to go because she didn't have anyone to go with, so i went with her. i got a great new comforter and a space heater for my room. plus, to thank me for going with her, my mom bought me a daily calendar with color pictures of france. i love it! friday night, more halo (better matched teams).

saturday, i did laundry, drove back here, played some roller hockey and hung out with adam and caroline. caroline has a new ring on her ring finger of her left hand! it was nice and sparkly. we went to cheddar's to celebrate with a skillet cookie. it was great hanging out with them again.

well, that's long and it's up to date so i'll stop.

interview!

2005-11-17T13:12:00.000-06:00

i just got an email from motorola saying they want to bring me in for an interview! i'm so nervous that i'm actually shaking a little bit! it could be the cold though a little bit too! ahh! i'm so excited and nervous at the same time! wheeeeeeeeeee!

title? i forgot the title!

2005-11-14T15:50:00.000-06:00

so this weekend was great.

friday: progressive dinner. it was fantastic. alyssa did a great job of planning and organizing it and getting people to come (that's what i'm worst at). first was appetizers at apartment 5: little weinies, spinach dip, mexican dip, bagel chips, and punch. second was salad and bread at brown house. third was main course at salt shaker: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes (bleh), green beans, corn, and stuffing. last was dessert at wayne and char's: pie. since i can't cook worth junk, i offered to help wash the dishes afterwards. there was a lot. then jaclyn and i went and got a movie to watch, but erin went to bed, i left after about 1/2 hour and the rest (jaclyn, trish and alyssa) all fell asleep.

saturday: woke up around 11:30, went to help rake leaves at 1:00. had the pleasure of working with nic and bob and gab and heather and michelle and another girl from ohio. it still took us two hours to bag up 40 bags worth of leaves from the yard and gutters. and in my opinion, it was a little yard! by time i got back home, neal and jay were here. i went running and pulled my lateral collateral ligament on the backside of my left knee. jaclyn and erin are convinced it's because i don't have proper shoes. ate supper at 5:30 at dos reales (my first time!). twas very good. totally beats taco bell's quesadilla. cleaned the apartment for awhile while the apt5 girls cleaned church. then david, neal, and i went over to hang out and since we couldn't decide on whether to try to movie again or play pictionary, we did neither. we (jaclyn, alyssa, neal and i) did, however, make a sonic run trying desperately to get there before ten only to find out it didn't close till eleven or so. then we hung out some more and then i went home to finish cleaning.

late night: pumpkin capers.

sunday: church as normal. darren had a great sermon about the persecuted church in the afternoon. about half of my family was there for church. shortly after church, another brother and his family showed up. i showed them all my apartment, we had some snacks and watched some football. then we went to a park so the kids could play in the playground. we threw the football around for a bit and then hit the baseball a bit too. unfortunately, my eldest brother's kids were sick so his family couldn't make it. i was a little sad, but i get to see them all in a week and a half (or two). we all had supper then at cheddar's and invited david and katrina to go with us. i recommend the chicken tenders and shrimp, it's a good combo. lounged for awhile and then went to 8 for the praise singing; it was a small group so we tried to learn a couple new songs. made a short run to dairy queen and decided to try watching the movie one more time. i made it through and (of course) erin didn't, but it was only an ok movie to me.

monday (today): took off work and skipped class to study all day. so far i've looked at all the prof's notes and soon i'll look at examples and ta notes. i haven't really moved from this chair all day and i'll probably be here right up until seven. apparently, it's pretty cold out with the possibility of snow tomorrow. yay! it won't stick but forecasted snow means getting colder means ice hockey and snowboarding. thank God it was nice and warm yesterday so my family wasn't all stuck in my tiny apartment between church and supper.

this is waaaay too long.

the end of chatterbox

2005-11-11T22:11:00.000-06:00

the chatterbox is dead. apparently the company that made it went broke and now they're gone. i had looked at others when i first began, but this was the only one i had liked. so everyone will have to post comments on normal posts, at least until i figure out a way to exploit blogger.com's system to make a new custom one.

conditioning

2005-11-09T22:48:00.000-06:00

first of all, last weekend's testimonies and baptisms were fantastic. anyone that was there knows. it was a fantabulous weekend filled with friends, fun, and faith. our pictionary team won, but there wasn't any picture of us to show for it. good times, good times.

so i've started my training for the snowboarding season. it's a long hard road. on tuesday, i ran. and ran. and ran. i ran until i couldn't run any more. then i rested and ran back. turns out, i ran two miles. one way. four miles total. it was pretty extreme for someone who has almost never run before.

when i wake up in the morning, i usually hit one rung on the way down the ladder to turn off the alarm. this morning, i bounced off the rung and landed on the floor and almost just collapsed. i had to hold on to the ladder to support myself. i barely reached over to the radio to turn it off and then fell into my chair. my calves were killing me! they hurt all day so i figured i'd better tone it down some so i just ran 2 miles today. i had been planning on doing stairs on friday, but i got talked out of it since it was such a calf killing exercise. i'll wait a couple weeks until my calves can take the daily exercise.

i need to start doing crunches and push-ups too. i'm going soft. i'm getting kinda fluffy around the midsection. have you seen me? i'm like an inverse hourglass.

titles are overrated

2005-11-04T14:07:00.000-06:00

it's been a week. i don't know how else to describe it. slow. maybe. two tests (wednesday and thursday) and an essay today. i'm hungry and i'm waiting for lunch right now. my thoughts are rather scattered right now. i'll try to pull it all together for this post.

nothing new to report. oh, except one thing that i found out at work today. it's going public so i think it's ok to put it on here. turns out that anjie (who resigned from the testing center a couple months ago) had been siphoning off money from the computer based testing pay up to about $25,000. police have talked to sue and anjie (she somehow talked them out of arresting her) and will talk to ann on monday about it. i don't think they'll need to talk to me since i'm only a part-time student but maybe. it's pretty big news, may even make the di. i feel bad really bad for anjie because she was always nice to me. so if you could pray for her too, i'm sure she could use them. i've never known anyone get arrested, so it's kind of weird for me.

yay! lunch is done! chicken fingers! i'm so happy. mmmhmmm...sooo good.

edit: will and erin are getting baptized this weekend. if you're not coming, you should come! i've got some extra space for guys. make sure you bring your own blankets/pillows/towels. girls, you're on your own. sorry.

work and stuff

2005-10-31T13:23:00.000-06:00

the weekend has already been recapped here. read the second post titled: Our Weekend!

a little over a week ago, abbie offered to give me 30 hours per week at a rate over $10/hour (to be decided later). i don't really have much time to be job hunting right now, so this would help me out greatly. there have been a lot of changes around here and after the construction in december/january plus don's taking a two month sabbatical so they really need my help for awhile. i don't think that was a real sentence, but oh well.

sue is back today and she's in great spirits. she thanked me for the prayers and i thank you all for the prayers. prayer really is an amazing gift that God gave us to use.

i've got nothing else to do tonight so i may start studying for my two tests this week. bleh. oh well, it has to be done. i think there's a review session tonight for wednesday's test, so i may go to that. it'd be like my second review session ever. i'm pretty sure i've gone to one sometime, somewhere. or i could start reading to catch up for thursday's test. yeah, that'll probably be the one. i'll probably just go to erc and read.

ok, i need to get back to work now. for these last ten minutes or so. heh.

sue again

2005-10-24T23:19:00.000-05:00

sad day in the testing center. abbie pulled me aside right away and told me that sue was in a very fragile state and that she would be taking some time off. she told me later that she'd be taking the rest of the week off for sure and that she wasn't sure if she was going to come back. i didn't ask what the problem was because it's not in my nature to pry like that. the only thing she asked for was prayers. i told her that i would. she really needs prayers right now so if you guys could pray for her too, that'd be awesome. thanks.

college weekend audio

2005-10-20T23:51:00.000-05:00

so i'm finally posting a new post after college weekend. it sounds like it was a fantastic weekend. great turnout and great topics. unfortunately, i was in the copying room all day with aaron but people still managed to stop by and say hi. thanks. it was great to see all the phoenix people again and i will see them all very soon in december!

anyhoo, the main part of this post is the college weekend audio. it's hosted on my new website (which isn't up yet; details to come soon). they are in *.mp3 format at 320kbps bitrate quality. they're rather sizeable, but better quality. to download, just click on the title and your browser should prompt you to save it or open it. if it doesn't ask you, right click on the file and click on "save target as..." please save it. i prefer that you don't stream it off my website for now. i know bluffton yg has the first one up, but here are all of them and you're getting the originals! luke, maybe you could make a casual note of it on your blog since many more people check yours than mine.

one last thing: please don't ask me to burn you a copy unless you're prepared to mail me the cds and $4 for shipping it back to you. i apologize for those who wanted cds later and didn't get them. i planned on 80 sets and 70 people signed up but then i also had to burn sets for the ministers so i had none left over.

enjoi!

whoo!

2005-10-15T09:41:00.000-05:00

here we go...

slammed

2005-10-12T13:28:00.000-05:00

wow, i am just slammed with stuff to do. college weekend mixed with homework and projects and assignments and essays. i am really excited about college weekend. i hope that a lot of people are coming because it is going to be a great weekend! so tell all your friends to pack their bags and come. the topic is relationships with anyone and everyone. i will be swamped during the day and stuck in a closet most of the time. feel free to stop by and say "'ello guv'ner" or something. i'll do my best to reply, but i make no guarantees. anyhoo, i hope all your weeks are going well.

oh yes, answers to the family game. only two answers so megan gets the award for fastest answer and i would give natalie the award for closest answer but she kind of cheated. she did, however, get almost everything correct (except she forgot ages of the eldest three). craig is actually a computer programmer not an engineer. my major is actually electrical engineering and not computer engineering. craig is 35, chad is 34, jay is 32. everything else she wrote is correct. maybe i'll give her a 1/2 award since she did have the most correct answers despite having to ask neal.

anyhoo, have a great rest of the week and i hope to see you all at college weekend!

photos

2005-10-07T14:28:00.000-05:00

These are some photos of my four nephews and one niece. there's another baby on the way in december, but we'll discuss that later.

This first one is of all of them stuffed into a miniature skid loader at Indianapolis Children's Museum.

This next one is Derek at his birthday party. He is eleven years old and is the son of Chad and Janice.

This one is Derek and Emily and Korey (in the high chair) and me. Emily is the second oldest at eight years old. She'll be nine in november and she is the daughter of Craig and Mary Ann.

This is Logan and Lucas on a train to St. Louis with my parents. Logan will be eight in November and is the son of Chad and Janice. Lucas just turned seven in august and is the son of Craig and Mary Ann.

This last one is the cutest of them all. This is Korey. He turns three tomorrow and he is the son of Chad and Janice. I dare you to have a cuter nephew.

I will give an award to the first person who can name all my brothers in order. Special prizes will also be awarded to those who can name ages, spouses, children, and careers. Good luck!

notice

2005-10-03T16:06:00.000-05:00

i have the dual sidebar kind of working. apparently, in some browsers, the right sidebar was way below the blog post area. i think i fixed it. it should be up where it belongs now. if it's not, please let me know. also include your screen resolution and any other factors you think might be influencing the appearance.

calendar

2005-10-03T00:41:00.000-05:00

first business: actually, the correct answer is (a). the law school admission council approves use of excessive force to make an example of the others. fortunately, they were all good on saturday so i didn't have to do that.

ok, that was a joke. i would actually use a combination. i would pretend to ignore him for awhile. if he sees me moving right away and he's guilty then he'll know i saw his kleenex and he'll quickly hide it. then i would walk around the room so that i came up behind him and check to see if anything is on the kleenex. if there is, then i'd report to the administrator. if there isn't, then i'd stare him down for awhile for lack of anything else to do.

since i didn't say you could pick combinations, the true correct answer would be (e). since all of you chose it, you can all pat yourselves on the back. since erin chose it first AND she was the fastest answer, she gets both awards. kristi gets the best explanation award because it really is fun to just stare people down when they're taking a test. and it helps discourage them from looking around and cheating. congrats all around.

last business: i've been working on a "calendar" on the side of my blog. the sidebar is starting to get pretty lengthy, i know. i have those items in a very specific order. i wish i could do two sidebars, so i'll work on that. it may take some time. anyhoo, the calendar (daily schedule) shows what i'm planning on doing that day. pretty pointless, but i'm having fun making it.

LSAT

2005-09-30T20:11:00.000-05:00

i am working every saturday for the next five weeks except for college weekend. last saturday was the ACT. ugh, high schools kids are so defiant. they're like: "catch me, i dare you." graduate school admission tests are more serious. college kids know what is at stake and they make sure to stear clear of anything that could be considered suspicious. still, tomorrow's LSAT is only my third time as a real administrator (i don't count the two times i only had one student) and i'm still working out all the kinks as administrator. the first two times, i got one experienced proctor. this time i get two proctors and i don't know who they'll be yet. i hope they're good. my first read administration was the MCAT (long test!!) and don (my proctor) said i was the most professional administrator he had ever worked for. i took it as a compliment. i hope i can keep that up. last saturday's ACT was a little sloppy (lights and temperature) but i think tomorrow will be better.

anyhoo, new question: you're a proctor at the LSAT. you see a 180lb white male reach under his seat and pull out something white that appears to be a kleenex. he proceeds to blow his nose on it and put it on the desk of the seat next to his. do you:

(a) run over to him, pull him out of his seat, drag him out of the room and yell at him for not using one of the provided kleenex's at the front of the room.
(b) ignore him. it's probably just a harmless kleenex.
(c) stare at him for the remainder of the test and make sure he doesn't look at it as if there were notes on it.
(d) tell the administrator that he's cheating off of notes on his kleenex.
(e) walk non-chalantly past his seat to see if you can see any notes on his kleenex.

[also explain why you chose your answer]

disclaimer: no prizes will ever be given for first correct answer or fastest answer or most creative answer for any of my questions. i am poor and cannot afford monetary awards or nice trophies. all you get is the satisfaction of winning an award. good luck!

speak

2005-09-29T00:58:00.000-05:00

ok, now i want to know who's ever read anything here. curiousity kills, but i'm doing it anyway. anonymity is enable, but extremely pointless so don't do it. i won't ask for birthdays, or any favorites. i don't remember birthdays and i'm honestly not interested in trivial favorites. although i would like to know the answer to this question: if you were designing a CIS on a FPGA board for reading through a PCMCIA bus on an IPAQ, would you store it in attribute memory or common memory and why?

taylor!!

2005-09-27T02:35:00.000-05:00

ohmigosh, like, taylor was sooo much fun! i had a great time hanging out with all you guys! and meeting all you new people! and...........turns out, i was the only ac that didn't go to taylor this past weekend.

but i still had a decent time. and (believe it or not) my high school reunion was the highlight of my weekend. administering the act was ok what with the random lights turning off and the thermostat set to arctic ice freeze. and the traffic after the football game being so unbelievably crazy that i almost hit two stupid drivers. and the sermons on sunday were good. but, yeah, i'd have to say the reunion was the highlight.

pork chops, mountain dew, seeing people i hadn't seen since high school, talking about people from high school, watching a video our 3rd grade teacher made of us, laughing at ourselves and how ridiculous we looked, catching up with people i hadn't seen since high school. yeah, i'll never have another chance at going to my five year high school reunion. i'm really glad i did. hopefully more will show up to the ten year reunion.

and now i'm back to the grind of school, school, and more school. i just now got home from being at the lab and i've got more to do tomorrow. gotta get this done, gotta get this done, gotta get this...have a great Jesus week!

prayer request

2005-09-21T18:17:00.000-05:00

i was talking with sue today (she's one of my sub-bosses at work and she's about the age of my mom [60]) about churches. she said she's been looking for a church for awhile so i talked to her about the apostolic christian curch and she seemed really interested. she said she'd been going to vineyard with her kids and grandkids, but she wasn't a fan of the playing guitars in chuch. she'd like to go to a church where they really sing. i gave her the address and directions to the champaign church, the name of our champaign elder (wayne), and starting times for each service. she said she'd like to come sometime so i hope she will. please pray for her as she searches and for me that i may be a light to her. thanks.

posts and stuff

2005-09-20T15:42:00.000-05:00

so i just realized the futility of posting anything that luke knapp has already posted. everyone who's anyone in the blogging world reads his blog and has links to his blog. amazing. he truly deserves the blogging t-shirt. i think he deserves a round of applause for all the people he has helped into the blogging world.

webcam

2005-09-17T19:21:00.000-05:00

so i ran across this software for broadcasting a webcam over the internet. i was thinking "i've got a webcam and i'm not using it, so i should try this out!" so here goes. it's pretty bad quality but it's like a visual away/online. so you can see if i'm really here or not. enjoy.

career fair

2005-09-12T09:21:00.000-05:00

i have a career fair this week. i am going to be talking to companies like intel, microsoft, and motorola. this could decide my future. i am very nervous about talking to these people so please pray for me this week. i could really use the prayers.

this is for kristi

2005-09-05T20:40:00.000-05:00

since i forgot to mention that i ate potato soup with kristi on thursday night, this post is for her. let it be known from this day forth that i ate potato soup with kristi on thursday night last the date being the first day of the ninth month in the year of our Lord two-thousand and five, and it was good.

phoenix (or thereabouts)

2005-09-04T23:22:00.000-05:00

so i'm sitting here in chandler, arizona. and in the past three days i've been all over the valley. mesa to laveen to chandler to east side of mesa to more chandler to phoenix to tempe to opportunity to chandler. morgan is house and pet sitting for his cousin who got married yesterday in hawaii. odd, because my cousin got married yesterday too, but in mesa. i'll take you through everything that has happened so far.

thursday: went to isu bible study and stopped by at natalie's for supper beforehand. ashley made a really good soup. hung out at isu for the viaduct singing and then stopped by andy and amber's on the way home. got the "royal" tour of their new house. it's a pretty nice place. then since we were scheduled to leave gridley at 2am, neal and i decided to not sleep.

friday: 2:15am - neal somehow got coerced into driving all the way up to midway airport. jay forgot the tickets and we had to turn around and go back to get them (but that was only about six miles from home). i stayed awake all the way up and talked to jay and neal and chad although jay and chad fell asleep halfway there. i had two cans of mountain dew about ten minutes before we got to midway. we got there plenty early and our plane left around 6:20am. the first half of the flight to denver was pretty uneventful. they had personal tv's on the back of each seat but it cost $5 to watch the good channels. so i just listened to music on my cd player and read the colorado rockies magazine (all about the baseball team). ordered a cup of coffee on this flight. had to change planes for the second half and drank my third can of mountain dew. the second pilot wasn't as smooth as the first, but then he had an older plane to work with. after landing, i had a tall caramel macchiato at starbucks. i was wired. finally in phoenix, we ate lunch at a food court in arizona mills and then walked around the mall for a couple hours. went to chad & michelle's place in mesa and took a two-hour nap (michelle = first cousin). "rehearsal" dinner was at eric & christine's place in laveen (christine = first cousin). got to hang out and catch up with a lot of cousins and a few other people. finally contacted morgan and got directions to his cousin's place (hereafter referred to as morgan's place) and went there for the night.

saturday: 10:30am - finally made it to salt river after a 20 minute detour courtesy of morgan who thought he knew where it was. we (morgan, neal, jay, josh johnson, caleb heinold, and i) tubed the salt river. we were on it for about 4 hours and most of us got burned. even the native arizonian morgan. but the water was great and we had a great time. back to morgan's place and got ready for the wedding. it was an outdoor wedding for jeremy & rachel (rachel = first cousin) at a really nice place. i cannot begin to describe the place to you, but it was a beautiful place and a beautiful wedding. afterwards, we went back to morgan's place and crashed.

sunday: church in the morning and then jeremy's mother took us all out to eat at some vegetarian place. all they had was salad and soup and a little pasta (the pasta contained the only meat in the entire place). afterwards, we went to rachel's and watched the new couple open their gifts. oh yeah, i should mention that jeremy & rachel are going to spain and italy for their honeymoon. i'm a little jealous. i wish i could do that for my honeymoon, but there's no way. unless i waited until i'm at least 30 like they both did (i think). back to morgan's to hang out for a little bit and then we met my other first cousin rachel (on the other side of the family) for supper at claim jumper. they serve huge portions. it was really good. and now, i'm sitting here doing this while morgan, neal, jay, and sam sit downstairs watching tv. our flight leaves tomorrow at 8:something and we should arrive back in central illinois around 3 or 4.

now you know.

pet peeves

2005-08-29T18:50:00.000-05:00

i have just come to fully realize two of my pet peeves today: bush bashing and foot pedestrians anywhere near a bike path.

first of all, bush bashing. our president, george w. bush, is the butt of many, many jokes. i hate it. today, during class, my teacher showed a video on the internet of bush defining the word sovereignty using the word sovereign. everyone around me was laughing. was the video a little silly? yes, i suppose. i, however, thought that it was totally inappropriate. we are making a mockery of our leader. it's even worse that this is done on an international campus. what do the international students think of us? what kind of country are we portraying to them? the majority voted him in, so even if someone didn't vote for him or doesn't like him, he is our president and we should all stand behind him. what has america come to? most people don't even respect or support our leaders! how are they supposed to lead people that don't want to be led? it's sad.

and of course, bike paths and the foot pedestrians around them. students on campus are totally oblivious to anything and everything around them. they are in their own little box that barely surrounds them and have nothing to do with anything outside of it. because of this, i have to hold my hand on the brake while riding my bike so i don't run anyone over. bike paths will often have bikes on them. how hard is it to look both ways before crossing it? foot pedestrians can stop a lot faster than bikers can. and why do people walk directly on the bike path??? this phenomenon amazes me. i just don't understand.

anyway, that's my rant for the week or month or so.

birthday

2005-08-28T23:59:00.000-05:00

it's not actually 11:59 on august 28th. i just fixed the time and date so that it would be a post on my birthday. oh well. it's over now.

one looooooooooong post

2005-08-25T17:25:00.000-05:00

ok, i'm sick of long posts, so i'll keep this short and sweet. i'm all moved in. i love the place. i started school yesterday. i've gone to every class so far, which is a new record for me. my birthday is this sunday. no one is planning anything for me. i might end up just going out to eat with my parents. my roommate travis offered to take me out to eat. the weekend after, i'm going to phoenix. hopefully morgan will email me back so i can make sure i can stay with him. this three day trip is my vacation for the year. purdue singing is next weekend after that. family reunion is next weekend after that. i'm afraid it might be the taylor invite as well. skip two weekends. chicago train trip is back on schedule. college weekend is the weekend after that. skip two more weekends. will and erin get baptized first weekend in november. then thanksgiving, snowboarding, finals, graduation, graduation party (with a mountain dew keg), new nephew/niece, christmas, new years. considering attending the second annual new years phoenix invite. apparently no one went last year. they need support people! hopefully a colorado snowboarding trip in there. kyle doesn't want me to go without him. he has to take care of his new baby. maybe i'll wait for spring break...oh wait! i won't have one anymore! oh yeah, in the middle of all this, i've got to find a job. ok, that was longer than i wanted. i'll stop now.

i'm in! are you in?

2005-08-19T09:37:00.000-05:00

whew, what. a. week. so i guess i'll just step through it slowly so you can all follow along.

thursday: spent most of the evening cleaning up the old apartment 1. it's a little sad. it's the end of an era. sigh.

friday: worked all day and finished cleaning out the apartment over my lunch break. and later that evening, finally time to relax.

saturday: finally went home in the afternoon to change lucy's oil. it took longer to get her up on the ramps than it took to actually change her oil. later, i went to erin hodel's with david for a pizza cookout. pause for food break, i just woke up and i'm finding it hard to remember what i did that long ago. oh yes, joe knochel was there! yay! and the ever popular, quasi-famous luke knapp as well. good times, good times.

sunday: church at gridley and i got to sit with my youngest nephew in the afternoon. if i had a picture, i'd show you how amazingly cute he is. during the first five minutes he chugged his entire sippy cup of milk, then during the first silent prayer, he faked a belch and then he really did one. it was pretty loud, but i was too proud of him to scold him. then a little later, a little girl was leaning over the bench in front of him and puckering up. korey kept leaning back as she leaned forwards. i leaned down and told him, "korey, i think she wants to give you a kiss." the next time she leaned in, he leaned back up and kissed her. ah, what a good day for korey. also had a family supper and left early to go out to leo! 4 1/2 hour car ride with three girls talking the entire way...i'm just glad i got to drive most of the time. finally got out to the truckstop and stayed with morgan, sam, and kenton.

monday: breakfast in the morning with all the girls too (bethany, natalie, natalie, charla, kaitlyn). finally got to start working on setting up for the sale. monday was full of setting up staging areas, chairs, and tables. for lunch and supper, i ate at east house with kenton and kaitlyn and house parents kurt and kristen slagell. it was great to get to spend time with the residents. after supper was bluffton night in which bluffton people come up to play games like ultimate frizbee and kickball. i played spoons intstead. afterwards the leo people and the volunteers had a Bible study. it was a great study on the difference between seeking and serving at church.

tuesday: more setting up of tables and chairs and also a swingset over by new house. unfortunately, we had the wrong parts so we couldn't complete it. i did get a nice tan though. and also some rolling up of the tent sides. lunch at east house again. supper at buffalo wild wings at sam's expense and some relaxing times with the truckstop boys. and later, we had a praise singing at gateway woods. and then we went to steak-n-shake. good times, good times.

wednesday: i woke up with allergies running rampant and an eye infection. bleh. it was awful. i was barely able to help set up quilt racks and then i laid down with ice on my eye because it was burning. lunch was at the fellowship center and then after that, bethany, natalie and i headed for home. i slept most of the way. i picked up some stuff at my parents' place and then headed for home.

thursday: moving...all day long. and then we went out to eat at cheddar's. mmhmm. good.

today: unpacking...

so that's my last week and i finally have internet again to be able to do this once more.

is this irony? i think so!

2005-08-12T08:40:00.000-05:00

i am struck by the irony of my blog title. fantastical journeys? dreamland? scott? ha! i'm too old for fantastical journeys. those days are behind me now what with the hip i broke in january. and another birthday coming up in two weeks! ya know? i've never had a surprise party. i've been involved with many but none for me. i'd always hoped for one when i was younger, but now i think i've outgrown it. oh well, megan said she'd plan one for me anyway.

i have no internet at home for a whole week! but it's ok, because i'll only be there for a total of about a day before i move anyway. and by home i mean apartment 2 at gabe's place. yep, i'm totally moved over. i spent last night eating steak at alexander's, helping david move his heavy stuff to brown house, and cleaning the kitchen/bathroom of apartment 1. i got to keep most of the stuff because scott and adam are gone and jeremy is only taking what he can fit in his rental malibu and that's mostly clothes. so i ended up hauling out another three or four boxes of stuff. the worst part will be trying to find everything i'll need for my three days at gateway next week.

oh yeah, i'm going to gateway. leaving sunday afternoon with natalie and bethany and probably won't make it out there until like 10 or 11 pm. workin' for three days and heading back wednesday, probably around 5 because i've got to go all the way back to gridley and then drive to urbana that same night. and i'm moving next thursday! i'm so excited. it's annoying having to move twice (david agrees) but i'm thankful that andrew let me crash at apartment 2 for the in-between time. it seems like everyone around here is packing/moving. i'll just be glad to get into my new apartment and have everything set up. but who knows where i'll be next year? i may even be moving out in january (if i get a job somewhere else). but that is in God's hands.

justin info

2005-08-08T16:54:00.000-05:00

here's some info and contacts for justin. post a note on the message board, he seems to like it. it's so great to see so much support and prayers for him. so everyone keep up the prayers!

Justin’s address through at least September 23 is:
Craig Hospital Room 316 A
3425 S. Clarkson St.
Englewood, CO 80113

He can also be contacted through the Craig Hospital Web site, where both he and Kathy write updates on his condition. This Web site can be accessed as follows: www.carepages.com Once in the Web site, click on “Visit a Care Page” and “sign up” which involves creating a member name and password. Where it says “Enter care page name”, type JustinWiegand (no spaces) and it will take you to his page where you can leave messages for him. Justin would really appreciate encouragement and support from the folks back home!

moving madness

2005-08-06T00:37:00.000-05:00

what a week this has been! i thought i'd get to relax since i was done with summer school, but nooooooo!!

monday~
finished project. did nothing rest of the day.

tuesday~
megan came down. we had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch with david. work in the afternoon. office politics are horrible! you think you know some people after working with them two days a week for two years, but nope. apparently our new boss is shaking things up. one lower-boss really doesn't like her at all and the other is welcoming her with open arms. then volleyball! classic tuesday night. a few of us went to steak-n-shake afterwards. mmmhmmm.

wednesday~
this time for lunch, we raided katrina's fridge. megan made some chicken salad. david brought some food too and will said it was like a potluck. i had a pizza party for the end of my class and when i got back there's a really, um, interesting story about megan's car, but i'll let her tell that one. i didn't know where anyone was so i took a short nap then started cleaning my room. awhile later, i got an im from lucas knapp. not luke, but lucas (the one from bloomington). he offers to pay me $300 to help him move to aurora the next day. i was like, "forget work! i'm helping you!"

thursday~
i got up early to help lucas move. we left at nine and didn't get up there until 12:30. traffic around aurora is terrible! lucas had to sign the lease first and then he filled out his deposit wrong, so he had to find a bank. we didn't start unloading the uhaul until 2pm. unfortunately, his new place is on the second floor so we had to carry everything (couch, futon, dresser, two good chairs, kitchen table, boxes, etc.) up the stairs. nice workout. we set up the computer first and put on some techno to keep our energy going. the enterprise people came and picked lucas up so i unloaded the last of it myself. then we took back the uhaul to a local dealer place. since my clothes were soaked with sweat, i borrowed some trunks and we went swimming in his pool while the clothes were in the washing machine. we went across the street to get some food and accessories. then we unpacked the kitchen stuff and i made mac-n-cheese with hot dogs for dinner while lucas unpacked other boxes. my clothes were clean and dry and dinner was in my belly so i was ready to head home! lucas paid me the $300 and had me sign a sheet so he would get reimbursed for it. since i recently came into such money and i was hungry for a dairy queen blizzard, i took the first two people i saw at gabe's (will and megan) out to dairy queen on my dollar.

friday~
for lunch today, will, megan and i went to zorba's and had gyros. mmhmm, good. a few hours of work (i got promoted! i get to be administrator for the mcat because upper-boss is hiring some new staff for proctoring) and then i bought five t-shirts. i realized that i'm going into my xth year at illinois and i only have one illinois shirt and it's got stains on it. so all five have illinois or chief on them. later, megan, will, katrina and i went out to eat at cheddar's. took a nap, cleaned my room some more and now i'm writing this.

saturday~
it's the future right now, sure. my parents and neal are coming down to help me clean and fix up everything in the apartment. paint and spackle and clean some more. i'm going to move some stuff over to apartment two tomorrow including my loft and entertainment center.

i realize that i started most days with lunch, but that's because i start most days with lunch. it's summer, that's just what you do when you don't work full-time. now i have to wait until my sheets dry before i can go to bed, which means many games of solitaire.

finished!

2005-08-01T14:24:00.000-05:00

at long last, i have completed my senior design project. there were many ups when i did a little dance because something worked right. there were many downs when i just wanted to throw the whole thing out the window. but i didn't because i knew i'd fail the class if i did. i survived the demo, i survived the presentation, i survived the writing of the paper. and now it's all done. it's 14 pages with a 24 page appendix. most of that appendix is code, but there are pictures and diagrams and tables in there too. if you're bored, you can wander over to the "my project" link and check it all out. you gotta have adobe reader to be able to open the pdf files though.

[whew!]

and megan is coming down to visit tomorrow! yay! laissez les bon temps couler!

i had a good title for this earlier

2005-07-31T18:56:00.000-05:00

you know those weekends that you just expect to do nothing? i thought this was going to be one of those weekends. turns out, it wasn't. althought i did nothing on friday night and was planning on playing solitaire most of saturday night. then david's like, "taryn just called and gab is trying to convince me to go to bloomington. wanna go?" i was like, "sure, why not?" so we went.

it was great! i saw so many people i hadn't seen in a really long time. there was taryn kaiser, kelly kaiser, heather knobloch, gab roeschley, katelyn thames, tricia plattner, laura barth, jeremy hodel, david thames, logan hangartner, david wuthrich (oh yeah, you knew that), and a few others that i didn't know too well. oh yeah, britni and kayla showed up a little later too. a few of us went rollerblading down the constitution trail at night. we left from the crossings and made it all the way to the other side of veteran's parkway, just past pier one. and then back again! some may call that intense; i call it a death march. not my rollerblading style at all. i like to stop and do jumps and whatnot. that's what my blades were built for. but it wasn't too bad after all. sure, i was sweaty and tired, but my feet were never uncomfortable. the coolest part was on the way back. i was going at a pretty good speed just to get back and get the death march over with. there were parts of the trail that are covered with trees and at night, that makes it a pretty dark tunnel. i couldn't see the trail or anything around me. all i could see was the light coming from the next street that the trail crossed. i just set my sights on that light and headed straight for it despite the darkness around me. it really reminded me of a christian's life. we have darkness all around us in the world, but if we set our sight on the one true Light at the end and "blade" the straight path, then we'll make it to the promised land.

i also heard some sad news that night. jonathan aupperle (aupps, the auperator) was in st. louis with the peoria yg and was racing his sister allison down some stairs when he tripped and fell down the stairs. somewhere in all the falling his knee hit one of the stairs and jammed his femur up into his hip thus breaking the femur. he had surgery today and he mumbled something in his phone message about not needing a cast(?) i'm not exactly sure what he said because the injury sounds extremely painful so i'm sure he had some good painkillers in him when he left the message.

sunday, i went to church with david in morton and my old roommate adam was there! he's working up in madison now at a software company that he calls the next microsoft. he said i should apply there and he'd put in a good word for me. he's also thinking of buying a house. not because he's making buttloads of money, but because it's on a lake despite being pretty rundown and cheap. he says he'll fix it up in the evenings because he has nothing else to do. i also got to talk to the halo guys from morton (jed, ben, tate) and we chatted movies, video games, and music. after church we (david and i) went to the local dairy queen and met taryn, kelly, laura, dane, daniel and jeremiah plus a brief cameo from paul.

now i'm back home, trying to work on my final paper due tomorrow that could make or break my class grade. i think i'll be fine. i've lived, breathed, ate and pooed this project. well, not really the last two because it's not a cooking class and silicon chips don't taste as good as they sound. ok, back to work.

tagboard

2005-07-30T16:01:00.000-05:00

i've added the tagboard on the sidebar. man, that was annoying. took me 3 1/2 hours to get it the way i wanted it. the first one i tried had too many popups and advertisements with it. i tried making my own with ms frontpage. i finally found a different one with custom modifications that i really liked. if you'd like one too, let me know and i'll show you how to do it. one last thing: your post may not show up after you submit it but don't worry, it's there. just refresh the page again and it'll show it then.

christmas miracle in july

2005-07-29T09:33:00.000-05:00

i haven't had much sleep in the past few days and it's all my project's fault. i finally did the demo yesterday and it went much better than i expected. i believe it was all the prayers that helped, so those of you who remembered to pray for me, thanks. i'll need them again this afternoon at three for my presentation. (i get to wear my suit and vest!)

anyhoo, this story takes place last night between 8:30pm and 1:30am. i had been working on my powerpoint presentation and decided that my software flowcharts needed re-working. i saved them as jpg's and closed ms visio. unfortunately, i discovered that it cut off some of the flow arrows that i needed plus other mistakes. then i discovered that visio only opens jpg's as jpg's. duh. i couldn't edit them! so i had to start over. i had just finished with the second one and i clicked on save and my computer shuts off. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! it rebooted and said there was an error with a driver. two minutes later, another spontaneous reboot. after the third i decided to boot in safe mode (without drivers and fancy extra stuff). the only way to fix it was to restore my system to an earlier point and i had never done this before so i wasn't sure what was going to happen. i didn't know if my files were still intact or if i would have to start all over from the very beginning after five hours of work. while it was restoring, i lay on the floor and prayed for it to work. God totally blessed me and all my work was still there, even the file that i saved as it was shutting off the first time. praise God! He deserves all the credit for this save. anyhoo, i'd better go now. have a wonderful day y'all. i hope mine is too.

the death of me

2005-07-27T23:24:00.000-05:00

this story is proof that international students are bad drivers.

so i was walking home from the lab around 8am. i was walking on campus on a 6-foot wide sidewalk with a bikepath right beside it. the first guy i saw was riding his bike on the bikepath, but he was staring straight down at the ground. i watched him ride like that for about fifty feet and the eyes never left the ground his front wheel was touching. the second one was a chick riding her bike wildly on the sidewalk with no regard to anyone else and no thought of the bikepath. i had to walk on the very edge of the sidewalk as she rode past me. i would have been safer walking on the bikepath. there are some crazy international people out there. scary.

great stuff

2005-07-26T21:58:00.000-05:00

we tried to play volleyball tonight. and by tried, i mean we toss the ball straight up about 2 feet and the wind carries it 1/2 mile, switches directions and carries it back over the net. perfect serve. well, we got one game under out belts and called it quits. just in time too, because then it started to rain. so we went to the shaker and ended up playing euchre/musical chairs. erin (aerin) and caleb (cale) were partners for all three games, but i had three different partners (loren, kat, meg). i only lost the last one and that was only by one point. good times. good times.
but the best was aerin's random comment. first, i'll set the stage for you. having just ran into the house in the middle of a downpour and having drunk some good iced tea, i saw this poster/t-shirt that a girl (i don't remember her name, help me out will) had made last time i was there. it was originally a snoopy poster that said "be happy" on it, but she ripped it so that it was a t-shirt that you could wear. so i put it on and wore it the entire time. we had all just received our cards and everyone was quiet as they were figuring out whether to pass or play and aerin says: "i just wanna rip off your shirt!" having lost my wit, i just laughed. stupid me.

stress

2005-07-26T01:13:00.000-05:00

ah, such stress. and such stressful times. only a couple days to finish my project and it's still not working. i worked on it for three hours tonight and i still don't know what's wrong with it. i almost thought i had it at one point, but i was wrong. if you've gone to my project page and wondered why nothing has changed in the past month, it's because i haven't turned anything in for the past month; i've just been working towards the final demo on thursday. i'm ready for this project and class to be over, but it's going to be one craaaaazy week.

side note: to those few of you who read this and have signed my guestbook: thank you. to those who read this and have not signed my guestbook, please do. i like to see who reads this even if you don't have an account to be able to comment on my posts. thank you all and have a nice day.

family weekend

2005-07-24T18:38:00.000-05:00

so i just got back from my family vacation weekend. it was alright. kyle and tara showed up early on saturday to see my project. we spent saturday at the children's museum. it's definitely a children's museum. jay, neal, and i practically ran through all the exhibits. it took us 2 hours to go through the museum. pretty boring. we spent the last hour in the cafeteria with a mocha and some $8 optical illusion playing cards. we finally left and went to the hotel. it was a sheraton...it was niiiice. chad and i hit the pool and hot tub for a little while. then jay and i hit the swanky mall attached to the hotel. i bought a pair of nice $20 jeans at gap. and then we were going to go out to eat at a nice place. unfortunately, we ended up at applebee's. it's not like we have any of those around here. anyhoo, we hit the pool again after supper and the ice cream. sunday was church in indy. it was actually pretty full because shawn wuethrich got married yesterday and that attracted a lot of visitors. i saw kent levy, mark zeller, clint steffen, keith schambach and his fiancee emily bollier. and joel zeller has two kids! who knew?! and then on the way home, i showed the rest of my family my project and took those who stayed to za's italian eatery and they loved it.

well, that's my weekend in a nutshell. and that's all that's new with me.

update on justin

2005-07-20T17:39:00.000-05:00

my mum called me this morning and gave me an update on justin wiegand. turns out, he broke his neck. another 1/4 inch in one direction and he'd be a quadriplegic. thank God! but he still has a long ways to go in recovery so he still needs lots of prayers.

volleyball

2005-07-19T21:55:00.000-05:00

oh man, now that's some volleyball. you think you've played volleyball, but you haven't played real volleyball until you've played in the sand pits of the university of illinois. you know how you're amazed when the ball goes back and forth for five times. well, tonight i saw volleys of double that at least. people were diving all over and making amazing saves. good spikes and great digs. it was some of the best volleyball i've ever seen. amazing, simply amazing.

other news: leo. i was thinking of hopefully going out to leo the week before the sale. i've snagged a little interest, but i'm looking for more. so i'm calling anyone and everyone that is free that week to go out with me. but in all reality, i'll probably end up going out myself. but that's ok!

last news: justin. actually, i really don't have any new news about justin. just keep praying for him!

justin

2005-07-18T23:25:00.000-05:00

i have this friend from gridley. his name is justin wiegand and he just graduated from high school. his parents and older sister are members, but he is not. he does, however, enjoy christian music and calls himself a christian. and now for the bad news. this past weekend he was on vacation in colorado with his family and apparently they were skiing. justin fell off the ski lift and broke several vertebrae. he has temporary paralysis in his legs right now, but he can still wiggle his toes so that's why they tacked on the temporary label. he gets a cat scan tomorrow (tuesday) and hopefully it's good news. he needs our prayers over the next few weeks as he recovers.

bloop

2005-07-18T01:00:00.000-05:00

yeah, titles are dumb. why do they put that at the beginning? anyhoo, result of gridley invite? meh. the work project got over early and not many out-of-towners showed up, but there was a ton of volleyball! unfortunately, it was grass courts and i had to wear long pants and it was 90 degrees out. but it was still fun. and i was pleasantly surprised to see kent levy, ben schlipf, and ryan graf there! i hadn't seen them since my last visit to purdue or possibly college weekend. and somehow my feet got really dirty from playing volleyball. i should have had someone take a picture of it; it was really weird. people were calling me names (it's normal), the most popular being "hobbit" and my favorite being "huck finn" (i rolled up my jeans just a little so i wouldn't trip on them). i also met morgan langhofer from phoenix but right now he's volunteer coordinator at gateway woods. i wish i could have come out there this summer, morgan, but this class has me tied down! he's a great guy, i recommend getting to know him.
then on sunday, after they all left, david and i went to hang out with the lovely brad and patti hodel family from roanoke including a meal at everyone's favorite restaurant: chili's. we played a game called "curses!" later, it was full of pirates/mr t/scooby doo/drill sergeant craziness. craziness, heh, that's the only way to describe that game. that's what it is.
i suppose this is lengthy enough and i'm sure you all have other blogs to read so i won't keep you any longer. updates to come later in the week! oh yes, the title. i still don't know what to put for that.

ciao

update

2005-07-15T16:04:00.000-05:00

so i don't have much news, but i'll report what i've got.
i'm making lots of progress on my project! i was at the lab from 10 till 2 wednesday night/thursday morning and from 11 till 4 thursday night/friday morning. it makes me tired, but it's starting to work! i just gotta fix some code for the microcontrollers. and then test range. only two weeks left until demo time!!
other news....hmmmm....
gridley weekend is coming up! starting tonight! but i won't be there. some friends are coming down and i told them i'd hang out here with them tonight. plus david is working tomorrow and he's riding with me to save on gas. because it's sooo expensive!! arg! plus that bluffton weekend is taking all our invitees away from us. d'oh!

ciao

coffee

2005-07-13T12:38:00.000-05:00

so i was bored too, and found the quiz that traci took and here's what it said about me:

You are a Black Coffee
At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable
At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty
You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it
Your caffeine addiction level: high

the last two are a little freaky because that is exactly me (when it comes to coffee and caffeine). i was like "whoa, this stupid, cheap internet test really knows me after answering a few questions." but you know who knows me even more? God. in fact, He knows everything about me. He knows that i'm drinking mountain dew right now and that i really should be at the lab working on my project. He knows where my current roommate is even if i haven't seen him for days. He knows where that cd is that i lost months ago. He knows how much i weigh at any given moment to the ounce. He knows...well, everything. so why do i keep thinking that i can figure stuff out on my own? it's just the human nature that keeps coming up that i need to deny (only with God's grace, of course) constantly! and just because God knows all of our imperfections, doesn't mean we disgust Him. no, He just loves us even more.

well, i hope all that rambling made sense. my thoughts tend to burst out all over the place and it's usually fairly difficult to tie them all together.

ciao

weekend

2005-07-12T12:09:00.000-05:00

i only have a few minutes before i have to leave for work so i'll keep this short.

it has come to my attention that the gridley weekend is going to be just that: a gridley weekend. many that were invited cannot come so i am taking the liberty of inviting anyone and everyone that reads my blog. so tell your friends. tell your friends' friends. tell anyone who doesn't have plans this weekend. it doesn't matter where you're from. you're all officially invited. if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, you just send them to me.

friday, july 15th
singing @ arlan and amber's @ 7:00pm

saturday, july 16th
work project
meet @ church parking lot @ 9:00am
working on horse barn @ salem, dry wall, trimming bushes, housework
supper @ chris, josh, & victoria's @ 5:00pm
singing and speaker around 7:00pm

sunday, july 17th
church @ 9:45am
snack directly following church @ fellowship hall

so now you know and you can't complain about not having anything to do this weekend.

ciao

project

2005-07-11T18:11:00.000-05:00

so i was working on my project today. it's pretty much all i have to do this summer. and i'm still not getting it right. bleh. i at least had something working last thursday, yet when i try to add to it today...nothing. it's pretty frustrating, but i'll get it eventually.

and now tonight, i'm going to a picnic for a birthday of a friend of a friend. i'm supposed to bring something, but i have almost no food. unfortunately, i can't take frozen pizzas so i'll probably just end up taking my mountain dews. they're hard to part with, but as long as they make someone happy, then i'm happy.

anyhoo, check out the links on the left <----- and don't forget to sign the guestbook! (megan's feeling rather lonely by herself in there)

ciao

le premiere

2005-07-09T22:40:00.000-05:00

yes, i finally succumbed. so tell all your friends so you can all come and laugh and point. actually please don't point, that hurts my feeling, but laugh away. until your sides split. so i was hitting link after link of blogs (it all started at megan's after she finally figured out how to put up links). anyhoo, i realized that kansas was represented, indiana was represented, central illinois was represented so i figured i'd stand out for good ol' urbana/champaign. yeah, so this post is pretty boring, i know. feel free to ridicule me or fall out of your chair laughing again. just don't hurt yourself...or do, it's a free country after all.

ciao