Friday, December 21, 2007
Wii Reserved
I had some training this morning up north of where I work, so on the way from there to my normal work location, I stopped by my friendly neighborhood EB Games and reserved myself a Wii in January.
Sure beats getting up at 6:00 AM on a Sunday and waiting in the cold for two hours.
My previous Wii was stolen in a break-in to my apartment.
I'm flying down to California today.
Labels:
california,
christmas,
nintendo,
shopping,
wii
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Also Taken
Yesterday, I discovered that the thief took something else in addition to the Wii and GameCube things: he took my Game Boy and games as well.
This one actually bothers me. In order to understand what I mean, you have to understand that this wasn't just money; this was a part of my childhood. These games, and the contents saved on their cartridges, represented countless hours invested, of fun and hard work. Also, I kept my games in immaculate physical condition, and kept most of the original boxes and manuals, which I still have, but sans games.
Here's the list (or at least, the list that I remember/have records of):
Game Boy games:
- Super Mario Land
- Super Mario Land 2
- Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
- Yoshi's Cookie
- Tetris
- Radar Mission
- Prince of Persia
- Super RC Pro-AM
- King James Bible (put out by WisdomTree; not licensed by Nintendo)
- Tetris 2
- Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
- Wario Land 2
- Wario Land 3
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
- Donkey Kong Land
- Donkey Kong Land 2
- Donkey Kong Land 3
- Donkey Kong
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
- Classic NES Series: The Legend of Zelda
- Super Mario Advance
- Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
- Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3
- Sonic Advance
- Mario Kart: Super Circuit
- Donkey Kong Country
- Donkey Kong Country 2
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Robbed, Again
Our apartment was robbed on Friday, for the second time in two months. It looks like it was the same people as the last time, or at least one of them: same entry point, same style.
Last time, most of the stuff that was taken was Casey's. This time, we were both hit, but he was still hit much harder than I. Both of our rooms were ransacked. Oddly enough, this time, they didn't take any computers. Even though my laptop was sitting right on top of my desk, and they climbed in through my window onto my desk, they didn't take it.
They did take the Zune from my desk. They also took my Wii, and all of its games and accessories (including the Gamecube games, but not the Gamecube controllers). I think this time they were constrained by what they could carry, and what they could sell quickly. I had jars of coins in my room that were taken, and Casey had some coins taken too.
I'm okay, what they took from me is mostly replaceable: it boils down to just money, and we have renter's insurance that will cover most of that.
The apartment is under construction: the balconies were torn down and are being rebuilt, so I imagine there wasn't a car big enough to load TVs and bigger objects into, or they would have been seen doing it. My personal theory is that one of the burglars, probably younger, needed some cash, and decided to revisit our place, because he knew there were still things to take, and he figured that he could still get in the same way.
He's not getting in the same way a third time.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Facebook's Beacon: It's Easier to Ask Forgiveness Than Permission
Facebook recently released a new feature that it calls Beacon. Basically what this feature does, is when you shop online (or interact with a website in some way, such as posting a review, etc.) at a site that has signed up with Facebook, that site sends information about what you do to Facebook, and Facebook updates all of your friends.
The idea being, that the sites that send your information to Facebook get referral business from people learning that you visited their site, and Facebook gets to hone its consumer profile of you, and serve you more relevant ads, and collect better market research about you. (Facebook is big on data mining.)
Sounds great, right?
In order to placate your privacy concerns, Facebook gives you two opportunities to opt out:
Update: Apparently, Facebook has responded to the consumer backlash regarding their Beacon service, and so they will be requiring a user's "opt-in" consent on a site-by-site basis. However: they are still collecting all of this information for themselves. This is still an unacceptable solution, and is designed to get sites not to prompt a user before sending the information.
- Before the site sends your information to Facebook, a small pop-up appears in the window. If you don't click it, or if you wait too long (20 seconds), it assumes you have no objection, and sends the data to Facebook.
- The next time you log in to Facebook's site, it presents you with the opportunity to not display the information to your friends. If you don't exercise this opportunity (like, say, you simply go and do what you went to Facebook to do in the first place), the information is added to your feed for all your friends to see.
Update: Apparently, Facebook has responded to the consumer backlash regarding their Beacon service, and so they will be requiring a user's "opt-in" consent on a site-by-site basis. However: they are still collecting all of this information for themselves. This is still an unacceptable solution, and is designed to get sites not to prompt a user before sending the information.
Labels:
internet,
privacy,
shopping,
social-networking
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Why I Chose HD DVD over Blu-ray
Because you're all just dying to know.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Viva La ResolutiĆ³n
Terrestrial exodus? Death? Oh, please.
Mostly I blame my dearth of bloggy effluence on the time leech that is Liz, but it's not as if I haven't been busy before, and still found time to blog. I've been doing lots of memorable things; hanging out with great friends 'till all hours of the night: solving the world's problems, and bearing consternation at our own before the Throne.
I haven't been dancing as much lately. It is both a symptom and partial catalyst of my mental discomfort. I miss it physically; my body is anxious for exercise, but tomorrow morning, I will satiate it well enough with paintball.
I think the main reason I haven't been posting to my blog lately is that my mind hasn't been settled: I write about what I think about, but often, I cannot write my thoughts, particularly if they are unresolved.
Certain breath-bated of my readers will be happy to know that resolution is at hand0. As a P, I tend to thrive on a certain level of uncertainty, ambiguity, and cavalierness, much to the chagrin1 of the Js in my life. This, however, only extends to a point2. My free-spirited intuition must have its basis in truth, and I cannot remain permanently in a state of flux3.
0And, presumably, as a consequence, more frequent posts. 1And intrigue, admit it! 2Or it might be considered a fault, which would be inconceivable. 3The monotony of it would be terribly boring.
0And, presumably, as a consequence, more frequent posts. 1And intrigue, admit it! 2Or it might be considered a fault, which would be inconceivable. 3The monotony of it would be terribly boring.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Facebook Status: Tim is NOT your BFF.
BFF
Elizabeth Today at 12:09pm You're not my BFF? Since when?? I'm going to go and cry now. Anyway, I am really curious as to the context surrounding that little status note.
Tim Today at 12:44pm That message was not directed at you. Besides, isn't your BFF supposed to be Jesus? The background is that I received a series of messages from the Top Friends application. There are a number of things wrong with this in itself (which I enumerate below), but the content of the messages was as follows: "So-and-so thinks you are BFFs and would love to be added to your Top Friends. Please add So-and-so today :) " Needless to say, I found this EXTREMELY annoying. 1) Facebook is not MySpace, or at least that's what I keep telling myself. 2) The term BFF stands for "Best Friend Forever". Given the meaning of "best" and "forever" in the English language, you cannot have a list of BFFs. You can only have one (for all time), who is the "best". 3) I don't want to receive this kind of e-mail. It is spam by the application developers who want to market their application by making it as in-your-face as possible: the exact type of marketing that I most despise. I have taken this issue up with Facebook support, and the only "solution" they offer is to individually "block" annoying applications. They offer no option to disable all non-installed applications (or even all applications). 4) Given the above, anyone who installs and uses an application such as this, and then proceeds to spam me with inane messages is not my BFF.
Elizabeth Today at 12:09pm You're not my BFF? Since when?? I'm going to go and cry now. Anyway, I am really curious as to the context surrounding that little status note.
Tim Today at 12:44pm That message was not directed at you. Besides, isn't your BFF supposed to be Jesus? The background is that I received a series of messages from the Top Friends application. There are a number of things wrong with this in itself (which I enumerate below), but the content of the messages was as follows: "So-and-so thinks you are BFFs and would love to be added to your Top Friends. Please add So-and-so today :) " Needless to say, I found this EXTREMELY annoying. 1) Facebook is not MySpace, or at least that's what I keep telling myself. 2) The term BFF stands for "Best Friend Forever". Given the meaning of "best" and "forever" in the English language, you cannot have a list of BFFs. You can only have one (for all time), who is the "best". 3) I don't want to receive this kind of e-mail. It is spam by the application developers who want to market their application by making it as in-your-face as possible: the exact type of marketing that I most despise. I have taken this issue up with Facebook support, and the only "solution" they offer is to individually "block" annoying applications. They offer no option to disable all non-installed applications (or even all applications). 4) Given the above, anyone who installs and uses an application such as this, and then proceeds to spam me with inane messages is not my BFF.
Labels:
customer-service,
elizabeth,
friends,
love-life,
social-networking
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Anna and Stephen's Wedding
Labels:
athena-link,
california,
elizabeth,
family,
pictures,
wedding
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
I Like Huckleberries
I just went on my first actual overnight backpacking trip. It wasn't supposed to be the first; the one before it was supposed to be an overnight trip, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and backpackers.0
It wasn't the weather. The weather was perfect for the two days that we had planned out overnight backpacking trip to Gem Lake from Snoqualmie Pass. It was beautiful weather in fact, and the scenery was beautiful to match. We hiked five miles: from the trailhead up over a saddle point and down into a basin and along Snow Lake, then up over another saddle point to Gem Lake.
There were seven of us all together: Mike, Josh, his sister Heidi and her fiance Robbie, Chris, Elizabeth, and I. We arrived at our campsite and set up our tents. The weather was so good that the bugs were out enjoying it along with us. This didn't suit us, and so after eating lunch, Mike, Chris, Elizabeth and I went into one of the tents to play cards.1 After we were done with the game, Mike and Chris left, and Elizabeth and I read Galatians.2 After we were done, Elizabeth went to her tent to lay down, and I did the same. Everyone was eager to get some rest, because we had timed the hike to coincide with the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, on a moonless night, and we were planning on staying up late into the night watching meteors.
Here ends the portion of the trip that went as planned.
Chris was not in his tent. This we discovered at about four o'clock in the afternoon. He was not to be found in the camp, nor around the camp, nor had anyone seen him since shortly after the card game: he had been unaccounted-for for two hours. We split up and searched the immediate area. We spoke with the occupants of the neighboring campsite, we called for him: nothing.
Having verified that Chris had not simply stepped out to relieve himself, we re-grouped and formulated a plan: we would split up into groups of two and search for him until nightfall. If we did not find him by nightfall, we would send out for Search-and-Rescue.
Mike and I searched to the south; Josh and Robbie searched to the east; Elizabeth stayed with Heidi at the camp.3
We re-grouped after the initial search. We established a system for communicating with our whistles. Mike and I headed around Gem Lake counter-clockwise (we were camped at the south end of the lake). We spoke with some more campers on the east side, and followed the trail around the lake, whistling periodically.4 I began to see recent footprints and scuff marks on the trail as we rounded the north-western side of the lake. We followed this trail up to a peak on the western side of the lake, where Mike spotted a blue beanie that he thought looked like it belonged to Chris. I looked through my pictures, and there was, indeed, a pair of shots that showed him wearing a blue beanie. (Mike's photos later verified this with more certainty).
The beanie was near the top of a peak with a rather steep ledge on the lake-side, but the tracks lead down the hill toward the camp. (Or did they lead up the hill from the camp? We couldn't tell.) If Chris had come clockwise, this peak would have been early on his hike, and he may have proceeded around the lake to Wright Mountain (northeast of the lake), or possibly to Wildcat Lake (below Gem Lake and to the north). If he had come counter-clockwise, perhaps he had gotten lost or injured, headed off into the woods, or continued hiking past the campsite. In particular, Mike and I noticed that the trail is difficult to follow on the north side of the lake.
We followed the trail down the hill towards the lake's outlet on the southwest corner of the lake, and continued whistling and following the trail. We checked the outlet stream as far as we could, and explored the surrounding landscape. About this time, we began to hear what sounded like whistles in response to ours. After confirming by walkie-talkie that the whistles were not Josh and Robbie, we began following them. The whistles lead us south, towards the western end of Snow Lake. After a while, they became intermittent, and finally, we lost them. At some point, Mike lost his walkie-talkie. We continued in that direction as far as we could, until the terrain and the fading daylight prevented our progress, and then headed back to camp. We arrived at camp a little after nine o-clock at night.
Chris, for all we knew, had taken no food, no water, and what's more, he was late for dinner! Something was seriously wrong.
Most of us were, at this point, pretty exhausted.5 We had just hiked five miles and four thousand feet with 40-pound packs on our backs, and then spend the afternoon scouring the countryside for any sign of Chris. We had worked up quite an appetite, and so we cooked up some dinner and formulated our next step. We did not expect that Search-and-Rescue would be able to send anyone until morning, but we decided to try and contact them that night so that they would be geared up and ready to go in the morning.
It was decided that a pair of hikers would head down towards the trailhead until they could get cell phone reception, which we expected would not occur until they reached the second saddle point. It was therefore probable that whoever went would not make it back to camp that night. Josh and Robbie needed to stay with Heidi, and Mike, though he wanted to go, was exhausted. I seemed in any case to be the least worn-out of the guys, and so I volunteered to go. Elizabeth at this point absolutely refused *not* to go: she was fed up, necessary though it had been, with sitting still, and wanted to actually *do* something to help. Additionally, she was the one most trained to provide medical care should we encounter Chris on the trail, so the two of us, equipped with trekking poles, head lamps, and light packs with emergency supplies and blankets, headed off down the trail.
As we crested the first saddle point over Snow Lake, Elizabeth suggested seeing if we were in range. We had two cell phones: mine, which has AT&T, and Josh's, which has Verizon. To our surprise, we got reception!7 Elizabeth dialed 911, and calmly identified herself and explained the situation to the operator. The operator instructed us to stay put where we were and wait to be called back while SAR was contacted. We waited, but didn't get any calls. We called back, and deduced that our reception was too weak for incoming calls. Meanwhile, we notified Josh's girlfriend Vanessa of our situation, and gave her a list of people to call to pass the word. We had to make it quick, because the phone was low on battery, and we needed the line to be available for SAR.
As a result of that phone call, literally thousands of people were praying for Chris over the next two days.
While we were waiting for SAR to coordinate, Elizabeth and I were able to watch the meteor shower. We were facing towards the wrong area of the sky, but even so, we saw one or two meteors a minute.
At about 11:45 PM, SAR asked us to come down to the trailhead to help coordinate, so we hiked all the way down in the dark. Everything that was not illuminated by our headlamps was completely pitch black. I was in the lead, with Elizabeth behind. Every so often, I would miss a switchback in the trail, and she, with her wider-beamed light, would usually be the first to notice.
It took us until about 2:30 AM to reach the trailhead. We passed two groups of three Search-and-Rescue hikers going up about 10 minutes from the bottom. When we got there, there was a trailer where the coordinator, a K-9 deputy, debriefed us. After our debrief, another, larger, trailer arrived, and we moved to that. We also got to meet his dog, Wyle. That dog is *highly* energetic: he's like a puppy, only he's *much* bigger and *much* more powerful, and is trained to take the bad guys down.
We were told that we couldn't leave until morning, so when they were done with us at about 5:00 AM, we borrowed a couple of sleeping bags from one of the SAR volunteer coordinators, and climbed into the back of Mike's Subaru.8
Two hours later, at 7:00 AM, we were woken up by a helicopter. The search and rescue effort over the next two days was nothing short of amazing. There were over 250 people involved, most of them volunteers. There were 2 helicopters, mountaineering teams, and several teams of tracking dogs.
After supplying the SAR coordinators with a picture of Chris from my camera, we were relayed by Elizabeth's siblings to her house, where we crashed.
Chris was lost on Sunday afternoon. He was found just before noon on Tuesday. They helicoptered him in to the trailhead, and then took him directly to the hospital.
Chris, as it turns out, had left the camp (alone! without telling anyone!) in order to take a quick trip around the lake. He had gone counter-clockwise, and when he reached the south end of the lake had somehow missed the trail to the campsite. He had kept going, thinking that the lake and the camp would be just around the next bend, then the next, and the next. At nightfall, he had seen a trail in the distance, and decided to head for that in the morning. He spent the night sheltered in a rock field, and then headed in the direction of the distant trail. It was farther than it had looked, and he in fact never found that trail, but he did hear the helicopter in the distance, and after one more night in the wild, decided to head in that direction and "in the direction of the mosquitoes".
He eventually made his way to a trail, and followed it to an intersection with the trail that we had hiked on past Snow Lake. Shortly after finding the trail, he met another hiker, who "somehow" knew his name, and 30 seconds away was a SAR party.
Anyway, that was my first backpacking trip, and if you've been paying attention, I didn't actually end up staying the night in the camp; I spent it in the back of a Subaru. My first successful overnight backpacking trip was this last weekend. Mike, Chris, Elizabeth, and I, along with Keisha climbed up to a campsite at the base of the glaciers on Mt. Shuksan, which is near Mt. Baker and the Canadian border.
On this particular trip, no one was lost for days, but the weather was, unfortunately, quite foggy, and on the second day, quite wet as well. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the hike. My calf muscles are still a bit sore, but my knees have stopped hurting. We saw mountain goats, and there were berries all over the place. There were wild blueberries in the forest, and above the tree line, there were fields of huckleberries (which, by the way, are quite delicious).
Also, I didn't have my camera. If you want pictures, you'll have to get them from Mike or Keisha.
0 Come to think of it, do people in general know what it is that "they" actually "say" about the best laid plans of mice and men? I mean, we know that phrase of the poem (or a rough translation thereof), but do we really know what it says actually happens to the aforementioned plans? Wonder no longer, my curious friend. 1 We played hearts, and I lost. 2 Yes, the whole book. It was a letter: it was meant to be read in its entirety, although the translation from which I was reading was one which the translator had specifically intended for study, not oral reading, so it was a bit choppy. 3 Elizabeth, who would have preferred to be out searching, was none-too-happy with this arrangement, but we all knew that we needed to keep her, our "medical personnel " centrally located in case we needed to call for her, and someone needed to stay at the camp in case Chris made it back by himself. 4 My hiking whistle is so loud and shrill that both Mike and I had to cover our ears while I blew it in order to avoid pain. The first few times I did this, the whistle kept popping out of my mouth because I wasn't adequately gripping the whistle with my lips/teeth. 5 Except me, for some reason. I was fine. And the girls of course, who hadn't been doing much of the scouring. 6 His walkie-talkie was found the next day, amazingly, by a SAR volunteer, who stepped on it. 7 Guess which phone? I'll give you a hint: "Least dropped calls" requires that you be able to make a call in the first place. It was Josh's phone. Yay Verizon! 8Hey--I know what you're thinking: don't worry, we had a trekking pole in between us.
0 Come to think of it, do people in general know what it is that "they" actually "say" about the best laid plans of mice and men? I mean, we know that phrase of the poem (or a rough translation thereof), but do we really know what it says actually happens to the aforementioned plans? Wonder no longer, my curious friend. 1 We played hearts, and I lost. 2 Yes, the whole book. It was a letter: it was meant to be read in its entirety, although the translation from which I was reading was one which the translator had specifically intended for study, not oral reading, so it was a bit choppy. 3 Elizabeth, who would have preferred to be out searching, was none-too-happy with this arrangement, but we all knew that we needed to keep her, our "medical personnel " centrally located in case we needed to call for her, and someone needed to stay at the camp in case Chris made it back by himself. 4 My hiking whistle is so loud and shrill that both Mike and I had to cover our ears while I blew it in order to avoid pain. The first few times I did this, the whistle kept popping out of my mouth because I wasn't adequately gripping the whistle with my lips/teeth. 5 Except me, for some reason. I was fine. And the girls of course, who hadn't been doing much of the scouring. 6 His walkie-talkie was found the next day, amazingly, by a SAR volunteer, who stepped on it. 7 Guess which phone? I'll give you a hint: "Least dropped calls" requires that you be able to make a call in the first place. It was Josh's phone. Yay Verizon! 8Hey--I know what you're thinking: don't worry, we had a trekking pole in between us.
Friday, August 17, 2007
My Girlfriend's Brother's Girlfriend's Birthday
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Seattle Lindy Exchange 2007
Yeah, so it's been a while since I've posted, and right now I'm playing catch-up. Here are some photos from SLE '07 which was August 3-5th. For those not familiar, the "Exchange" part has to do with the fact that people come from out of town and stay with the locals; the "Lindy" indicates that the dancing is primarily Lindy Hop, although there is some Blues and East Coast Swing as well; and the "Seattle" part should be pretty obvious.
They have dances in the evenings until midnight or 12:30, and then an all-night dance from 1:00 to 5:00AM. This year I didn't make any of the all-night dances. On Saturday afternoon, there was dancing in one of the plazas in downtown Seattle. My favorite venue was Battle of the Bands at the Naval Armory on Saturday night.
They have dances in the evenings until midnight or 12:30, and then an all-night dance from 1:00 to 5:00AM. This year I didn't make any of the all-night dances. On Saturday afternoon, there was dancing in one of the plazas in downtown Seattle. My favorite venue was Battle of the Bands at the Naval Armory on Saturday night.
Labels:
athena-link,
elizabeth,
friends,
pictures,
seattle,
swing-dancing
Monday, July 30, 2007
Choose Any Two
I've been aware of this one for a while:
- Better
- Faster
- Cheaper
- Enjoy your job
- Make lots of money
- Work within the law
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Shallowbrook 2007
Things have finally settled down enough for me to have time to post about Shallowbrook. There are tons of pictures by me and others.
This year, Tom spoke on Romans 9-11, Sid covered Matthew 1-9, and Al presented a secular defense of the New Testament writings and the testimony of a risen Christ.
Andrew Macy and I were also asked to speak. Andrew spoke on living for Christ from the heart, and I gave three talks on biblical headship, much like the two that I gave earlier in Tacoma.
Many of us also attended the Des Moines conference put on by the Altoona assembly. The recorded meetings can be found here.
I also recorded most of the Shallowbrook talks. Unfortunately, Al's last talk turned out a bit mangled by my MP3 player, and my second talk was lost due to operator error. (Not all the talks are up at publication time, but when they are up, they will be found at the above link.)
I also have made the notes from my talks available in PDF format.
This year air fare was more expensive than I remember it ever being, no doubt due to the high price of oil. That, combined with my shortage of vacation time meant that I took a red-eye flight to Illinois. I should have gone straight to bed, but I was at Shallowbrook! Never mind that no one else was there yet, because they had all been water skiing for three days. I did end up laying down for about an hour, but when the water ski crowd arrived, I was inexorably drawn back upstairs.
I blame Michael. He had a cold, and he was one of the four of us to claim the mattresses in the closet (it's a big closet). Mattresses sure beat cots. Anyway, when I woke up on Sunday morning, my throat was raw, and my nose was stuffed up. The air conditioning makes the basement a bit chilly, especially at night, and my immune system was under the stress of not having slept except in the very back row of a plane from Minneapolis to Moline.
For the first half of the week, I was constantly blowing my nose, and tired. Very tired. But I didn't let myself sleep, because for some reason, the best conversations happen after midnight (and often last several hours), and during the day I was spending my time with friends I only see once or twice a year, or preparing for my next talk. Basically, I was a zombie, but I was a happy zombie. My energy hit a low toward the middle of the week, which kept me from playing sports, but at the beginning and end of the week, I was healthy enough to play sports swim.
It's a bit odd looking around and realizing that, not only are you one of the "older" young people, you're pretty much it. I was saved from being the geezer by Todd. I decided that since I was speaking this year, that I would recuse myself of the "roasting" event in the talent show at the end of the week. Every year since I've been there, someone has gotten up and impersonated the speakers, making fun of their mannerisms, foibles, mistakes, and slips of tongue. Since each speaker gives two 45-minute talks a day for five days, we've never been short on material. For the past few years, I have been centrally involved in this event, often recruiting the speakers and writing their scripts, as well as doing Sid myself. This year, I informed Matthew that I wasn't going to be involved, and I must say, he, Sean, Andrew, and Davy did an admirable job. My one criticism was that they didn't do enough of the, as it were, mannerisms of the speakers, but that could just be me wishing I was still in the game. It brings a tear to my eye to see the traditions passed on (not really).
At the last minute on Friday, I decided to go to the Macy's farm in stead of taking the bus to Des Moines. I piled into a car with four other guys, and we headed off to the Maurer's, where we then all loaded into a (french fry oil-powered) pick-up truck--but that's another story, I believe they were running on deisel at the time. We drove that to the Macy's, where we shot some skeet, ate, hung out, let off some fireworks, and then left for Des Moines.
We arrived around midnight, and some of us were hungry, so we found a diner and had breakfast, which was good, because I slept through breakfast the following morning (I probably would have stayed up either way).
Despite my perpetual state of tiredness, I enjoyed both Shallowbrook and Des Moines. I like being a part of a group of friends who know each other well enough to break through the barriers and talk about things that matter. It was also good to sit down and talk to some of the middle-aged (and older) folks that I don't see too often.
I'm still recovering from the lack of sleep. As a co-worker once told me, "You know it was a good vacation if you have to come back to work to recover."
This year, Tom spoke on Romans 9-11, Sid covered Matthew 1-9, and Al presented a secular defense of the New Testament writings and the testimony of a risen Christ.
Andrew Macy and I were also asked to speak. Andrew spoke on living for Christ from the heart, and I gave three talks on biblical headship, much like the two that I gave earlier in Tacoma.
Many of us also attended the Des Moines conference put on by the Altoona assembly. The recorded meetings can be found here.
I also recorded most of the Shallowbrook talks. Unfortunately, Al's last talk turned out a bit mangled by my MP3 player, and my second talk was lost due to operator error. (Not all the talks are up at publication time, but when they are up, they will be found at the above link.)
I also have made the notes from my talks available in PDF format.
This year air fare was more expensive than I remember it ever being, no doubt due to the high price of oil. That, combined with my shortage of vacation time meant that I took a red-eye flight to Illinois. I should have gone straight to bed, but I was at Shallowbrook! Never mind that no one else was there yet, because they had all been water skiing for three days. I did end up laying down for about an hour, but when the water ski crowd arrived, I was inexorably drawn back upstairs.
I blame Michael. He had a cold, and he was one of the four of us to claim the mattresses in the closet (it's a big closet). Mattresses sure beat cots. Anyway, when I woke up on Sunday morning, my throat was raw, and my nose was stuffed up. The air conditioning makes the basement a bit chilly, especially at night, and my immune system was under the stress of not having slept except in the very back row of a plane from Minneapolis to Moline.
For the first half of the week, I was constantly blowing my nose, and tired. Very tired. But I didn't let myself sleep, because for some reason, the best conversations happen after midnight (and often last several hours), and during the day I was spending my time with friends I only see once or twice a year, or preparing for my next talk. Basically, I was a zombie, but I was a happy zombie. My energy hit a low toward the middle of the week, which kept me from playing sports, but at the beginning and end of the week, I was healthy enough to play sports swim.
It's a bit odd looking around and realizing that, not only are you one of the "older" young people, you're pretty much it. I was saved from being the geezer by Todd. I decided that since I was speaking this year, that I would recuse myself of the "roasting" event in the talent show at the end of the week. Every year since I've been there, someone has gotten up and impersonated the speakers, making fun of their mannerisms, foibles, mistakes, and slips of tongue. Since each speaker gives two 45-minute talks a day for five days, we've never been short on material. For the past few years, I have been centrally involved in this event, often recruiting the speakers and writing their scripts, as well as doing Sid myself. This year, I informed Matthew that I wasn't going to be involved, and I must say, he, Sean, Andrew, and Davy did an admirable job. My one criticism was that they didn't do enough of the, as it were, mannerisms of the speakers, but that could just be me wishing I was still in the game. It brings a tear to my eye to see the traditions passed on (not really).
At the last minute on Friday, I decided to go to the Macy's farm in stead of taking the bus to Des Moines. I piled into a car with four other guys, and we headed off to the Maurer's, where we then all loaded into a (french fry oil-powered) pick-up truck--but that's another story, I believe they were running on deisel at the time. We drove that to the Macy's, where we shot some skeet, ate, hung out, let off some fireworks, and then left for Des Moines.
We arrived around midnight, and some of us were hungry, so we found a diner and had breakfast, which was good, because I slept through breakfast the following morning (I probably would have stayed up either way).
Despite my perpetual state of tiredness, I enjoyed both Shallowbrook and Des Moines. I like being a part of a group of friends who know each other well enough to break through the barriers and talk about things that matter. It was also good to sit down and talk to some of the middle-aged (and older) folks that I don't see too often.
I'm still recovering from the lack of sleep. As a co-worker once told me, "You know it was a good vacation if you have to come back to work to recover."
Labels:
athena-link,
fireworks,
friends,
health,
meeting,
pictures,
preaching,
shallowbrook,
sports,
theology,
travel
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The Ayoub's 50th Anniversary
Also that weekend, I went to my church in California. In the afternoon, there was a surprise party for a the Christo and Laura Ayoub's 50th anniversary.
Brenda's Wedding
Last weekend, I flew down to California to attend my cousin Brenda's wedding. Apparently there were quite a few weddings on 07/07/2007.
Labels:
california,
family,
pictures,
travel,
wedding
Friday, July 06, 2007
Independence Day
I posted some pictures, and among them some videos, from the 4th of July. As with every 4th of July since I got my camera, I filled up the memory card. It only takes a 512MB card, anything more and it corrupts the card (I went through two 1GB SD cards).
The videos are embedded in the web pages by Picasa in such a way that they don't work in Firefox, or at least I haven't gotten them to. They seem to work fine in MSIE 7.
Someone needs to file a bug report with Picasa or Firefox. I haven't had time.
This 4th of July, David and Becky drove out from Richland to Bonney Lake, where a friend that we know from La Habra (originally from Lancaster) was in town visiting friends for a wedding. When we got there, I recognized a few people from the family, because I pass them in the hallways at work.
It was a fun party. There were lots of kids, but I (uncharacteristically) didn't play with them very much. For some reason I didn't feel like it. It might be that I've been under a lot of pressure lately and I just wanted to relax. Oh, and blow things up. That too.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Visiting David & Becky
On Saturday, Elizabeth and I drove down to Richland to lend a hand to David and Becky. We went to the park afterwards.
I posted the photos I took, and also some videos, which Picasa still has trouble embedding. If you can't see the video file from the web page or if you just want to save the video, I added a "Download Video" link.
I posted the photos I took, and also some videos, which Picasa still has trouble embedding. If you can't see the video file from the web page or if you just want to save the video, I added a "Download Video" link.
Labels:
athena-link,
family,
pictures,
travel
Sunday, July 01, 2007
American Eagle
Congratulations to the Bald Eagle for making it off of the endangered species list. Take that, Beaver.
My BSF softball team (the Highlanders) spotted a bald eagle's nest at our game on Monday.
So, when does open season start?
My BSF softball team (the Highlanders) spotted a bald eagle's nest at our game on Monday.
So, when does open season start?
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
iPhone
This post is on my other (more nerd-centric) blog, but I thought I might call attention to it here.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
The Exodus Continues
It seems to be the time for good-byes. The Kerrs, who have been in Washington for three years (just a bit longer than I) are heading back to Texas (by way of Canada) in July.
Dave & Melody, Evalyn, Mary, Benjamin
On Saturday, there was a going-away party at the Froese house.
We're going to miss them.
Dave & Melody, Evalyn, Mary, Benjamin
On Saturday, there was a going-away party at the Froese house.
We're going to miss them.
Labels:
athena-link,
friends,
meeting,
pictures,
travel
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