Saturday, April 28, 2007

Lakeview and Evening

First off, here are photos from last weekend's conference at the Lakeview Christian Conference Center in Auburn, WA:
Lakeview Conference Photos

I really enjoyed the conference. My dad and sister Sarah flew up, and it was good to see them, as well as others from around the country.

Before I proceed further, an introduction is in order:

For a bit over a month it has been my privilege and joy to be courting a captivating young woman. She has impressed me as one who loves what is right, and yearns to please the Lord in what she does: to know Christ; to walk before Him and so be a blessing to others.

Her name is Elizabeth:


She is a nursing student (almost done!) at Northwest University. We have been acquainted with each other since last summer through her sister and our dear friend Amanda. It wasn't until last December that we really got a chance to spend quality time with one another, though she had already piqued my interest. She was off in India during the month of February (where she got the sari she's wearing in the above photo), and when she returned, I got to know her a bit better, asked her out, and then had a talk with her parents.

She has driven me to my knees before the Lord and his Word (we have both been driven there). I have been so blessed; so refreshed and excited!
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
~Matthew 5:6-8
The following photos are from a formal evening put on by Northwest. It used to be called "Spring Banquet", but they don't serve much food, so now it's just "Evening".

Northwest University 'Evening' Formal Photos

The other couples pictured are her our friends George & Cara (who got engaged that evening!) and Rick & Martha.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Comcastic!

I pretty much dropped off the face of the Internet this past week. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal not to have a connection at home, because I could just check my e-mail and feeds, etc. while at work. Well, as it happened, I was sick all week, and I stayed home. Without the Internet. Perhaps my sickness was augmented by the withdrawal symptoms. In any case, on Saturday, I finished cleaning out the old apartment by noon, and headed over to the new place because the cable guy was scheduled to come in the 12:00-4:00 window. While I waited, I started tidying up the place. RFH was gone for the weekend, so I decided to take all of the boxes with his stuff in it and stick them in his room. This made the tidying much more manageable. Finally, at 4:10, the cable guys arrive: two of them. They set up the TV and on-demand pretty quick, but then came the Internet. First, the modem didn't work. Then, the new modem's MAC address wasn't being recognized by the system. Once that was straightened out, they asked to use one of my computers. I didn't have any Windows-based computers handy: Athena was up and running, and I have a FreeBSD system I'm messing with, but they apparently needed something they were familiar with, so I pulled out a mini Dell with Windows 2000, and they set to work. Apparently, they don't let you just plug your router in and go. No, any website you request will redirect you to their site where you can download an installation file for some program that sets up the connection. What if I hadn't had a sacrificial Windows box that I was willing to let them screw up? Anyway, I did, so I let them install it, and it was working, until they rebooted, and then it couldn't get an IP address. Eventually, they got it to consistently connect as long as it was directly connected to the modem, and not through the router. This is a problem, seeing as we have a total of 10 computers in the apartment, and it would be nice if we could access the Internet on more than one computer, especially considering that that one computer is a 1000 MHz Pentium II running Win2k. The guys tried to get it working, but apparently it was taking them too long, and according to their tech support guys, they're only responsible to get it working on one box, so at about 7:00 they left. After they were gone, I tried a few things, and finally got it working through the router by running the configuration program while connected through the router. The problem was, that computer was no longer able to connect to the Internet through the router. This qualified as "good enough," even though it rendered the Win2k computer completely incapable of obtaining an IP address. It also left the cable company's logo in place of the MSIE spinner, even after uninstalling the software, something which I find particularly annoying. When I tell software to go away, I expect it to do so completely. My advice to you: don't let the cable company near any computer that you wish to remain useful. Now I have to wipe the hard drive and re-install the operating system. I was using that computer to host the printer, since my printer's drivers won't work with Vista. The problem with re-installing the OS is that this particular computer's case doesn't have room for a CD-ROM drive, so I basically have to stick the hard drive into another computer case which supports an optical drive, re-install Windows 2000, and then put the hard drive back. The good news is that I was able to get everything else to work. The server is back up for pictures, etc.

Monday, April 09, 2007

I've Moved Down the Street

On Saturday, I moved to a different apartment complex down the street. We have most of our stuff out of the old apartment, but one exception is Athena, my Linux server, which is still chugging away at the old apartment. This is because it's hosting most of the pictures and other content to which I link from this blog. We won't get an Internet connection at the new apartment until Saturday, and we're cancelling the cable at our old apartment today (Monday). Therefore, if you want to look at my pictures, you'd better do it now, provided it hasn't been unhooked, or you'll have to wait until this weekend.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Passover Seder with Beit Tikvah

On Tuesday we went to a Passover Seder hosted by Beit Tikvah, a Messianic congregation. Afterwards we hung out at Amanda's house for a bit. This is becoming a photo blog, and I don't like that; not because of the photos, but because of the real, well-thought-out content that they seem to be displacing. You'll have to forgive me; my life has been rather busy of late (hence all the the opportunities to take photos). I'm getting ready to move on Saturday to a new apartment down the street from the complex that we're in now. Lately, my life has had a pointed lack of down-time. I haven't even been dancing in over a week now. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind. I just wish I had an extra two hours a day.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Little Si Hike

Little Si Hike photos here. I brought my tripod along and used it too, so I'm actually in some of these. What the photos don't show is all of the deep and meaningful converstaion. I love my friends.
A note on the movies: Picasa doesn't know how to embed a movie correctly when you export an album to a web page, so I edited the main page so that when you click on the movie thumbnail, it sends you directly to the AVI file (your browser will probably prompt you to download or open it). If you go through the pictures clicking "Next Picture" you will still get to the page where the movie file is (incorrectly) embedded, and it won't play. The movies aren't all that great.