week of drama pt 1.

Once upon a time in a land far far away, I registered for my second semester Greek class. When I registered the dates posted were August 4th - the 29th. So I had prepared my entire summer with these dates in mind. Sadly, they were not correct.

(The correct dates for my Greek class were July 28 - August 22.)

So Monday the 28th of July I went to the library to perhaps take a glance at the syllabus, get an idea of what I needed to prep on, and take a look at the online classroom, when I noticed that the official summer term was posted as July 28th (not the 4th of August like I was expecting).

I began to panic. "Surely this can't be happening to me!" My heart rate went up. I began to profusely sweat. "This isn't possible!" But it was happening, and it was possible. I checked my e-mail and sure enough I had an e-mail in the inbox from my instructor telling me that he missed me in class that morning. My heart sunk into my stomach. I had missed the entire first day of class!

This is how I started my final year of grad school!

Late night carpet cleaning and new shoes

Late night carpet cleaning:
Tuesday night AD Carpet Care took a road trip south to Stanford, Ky to clean the Depot Restaurant. We finshed at the restaurant sometime around 2:15am, and I got home about an hour later.

Tonight (Thursday Night) we're cleaning the restaurant at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Lexington. We can't start there until 11pm. Which means we'll get out sometime about dawn!

This is the fab life of a carpet cleaner!

New Shoes:
I've been wanting a pair of Converse "Chucks" for a while. So Steph has been watching at Target a nice white pair for me. They were on clearence, and we were waiting until the price was perfect. Well the price finally dropped into the "we can afford that" range, so while we were out tonight we got them.
I'm pretty pumped!!

Thanks for stopping by and remember, Aloha means goodbye!

Childhood Heros

(Ray, Chris, Juwan, Jalen, and Jimmy)

Growing up, these guys were my heros.

Who could forget the black socks, the shaved heads, the dunks, the trash talking, the swagger, the baggy shorts, the hip hop flavor, or the time out?

Sadly, the University does not remember this teams all because one of the guys took money from a Booster while he was a player at U of M thus disqualifying the team from competition. Even though they never officially won a game, they're still my favorite team of all time!

$4.00 gas?!?!? i'll take the train

This is in no way an original thought, in fact, I heard it from my boss at AD Carpet Care who's about as far on the Right of the political spectrum as one can possibly be.

Today we're struggling with a couple of issues when it comes to transportation. First, we have an energy crisis, as we're locked into a bidding war over oil. We're competing with Asia, the fastest growing part of the world, for oil. Thus prices are going up. Second, we're dealing with our carbon footprint (aka: how much we are polluting). The problem with our energy situation is the vast majority of our energy comes from elements that are polluting the air.

What if we created a train system that went in the median of the interstate highways? What if in the tracks were solar panels? We'd have the ability to power the trains, plus many of the areas near the tracks. We would be able to use the routes already established (they were designed to be the quickest route between the major cities anyway). 

I know that there are many issues with this idea, but it is an interesting concept. What do you think? Do you think that a transit system like this would have any hope of working?

Life in General

Summer Update

1. working as much as possible cleaning carpets.
   
2. occasionally working the switchboard at the seminary
   
3. trying to find a Tigers or Cubs game to watch on TV
   
4. trying to get my "summer reading list" finished
   
5. helped a number of friends pack up and move away 
6. prepping for Greek class in August and Chapel Internship
   
7. we were able to go home a bunch over the past 2 months
8. meeting new people in our building 
9. we have the Beer Family Reunion (Steph's Grandma on her dad's side family) on the weekend of July 26-27 in Louisville
10. the first week of August I move to doing school work full-time until May '09 when I'll hopefully graduate

Political Thoughts

Not sure who to vote for in this election yet. Kinda a toss up to me right now as I don't really like either of the candidates. They both seem to have good positions on somethings and bad positions on the other. Maybe we should put Jesus as a write in on the ballot (Steph's idea). I wonder what would happen if we really did that! 

Random Thoughts

Also, I'm trying to get more organized in my life. It seems I'm a very flighty person. Since I've been married, I've realized that I forget a bunch of things (sadly sometimes it was paying bills). My goal for this year is to become purposefully organized in all that I do. This means I have to get a calander book, use it, and remember to check it for important information. Because I'm good at usually 1-2 of those three things. So hopefully by the time I graduate I'll be proficient at being the most organized person I can be! Good Bye Type B personality!!!

Viva la Vida, or Death and All His Friends

over the weekend steph and i purchased the new coldplay album "Viva la Vida, or Death and All His Friends" on itunes over the weekend! we both like it! we had downloaded the title track a couple of weeks ago, but we not sure of whether to get it or not. personally, i'm glad we did.

i think that this album is a very political statement. in an interesting interview with rolling stone chris martin (the lead singer) had a very candid conversation with brian hiatt (not the asbury seminary student). one of my favorite comments is in response to questions about a line from the song 'Death or All His Friends': "I don't want a cycle of recycled revenge." when brian comments that this line describes the state of the world, martin says, 

"And it's f______ true, man. you can see it everywhere. It's like, when are we going to learn? We're never going to learn, that's the answer. It's an ultimate bummer and the last humans on Earth will really kick themselves."

what if there was a group of people in the world who really believed that revenge is wrong. what if there was a group of people in the world who really believed that we should love our neighbor, and forgive those who do wrongs against us. what if these people actually lived this, and believed that their God had actually first done this. what would chris martin have to say to them?

sadly, the message of the church is that Jesus has broken the cycle of revenge, but we've allowed our message to move away from that. sadly, christians are often the leading proponents of revenge in this country. so maybe chris has a point...

In Michigan! Happy 4th err 2nd of July!

So it's 2am and I'm still awake! I just drove from Wilmore to my home in Michigan. There's nothing quite like putting 500 miles on your car in one setting! Unless it's 1500! We're going to be in Michigan for a while and then make a stop in the Fort to see family and party like it's 1776! (minus the redcoats coming to blow us away!)

Also, funny story. Stephanie's family has Sunday dinner together every Sunday night. Last Sunday night her mom, who is absolutely hilarious, made pork ribs for this dinner. Since they were pork, she seasoned them with Kosher salt in an attempt to make them a little less porky...This is my family!

I found a great top 10 list-The top 10 reasons why Men shouldn't be pastors. My friend Tom Fuerst who is a genius posted this list as a note on his facebook page, and I simply copied (I find myself stealing funny and insightful thoughts from him from time to time, so enjoy and know this didn't come from me.) and pasted it to my blog in the Fun, Sarcastic & Trivial section in the right hand margin of this page!

FYI...I heard an urban legend that says the Declaration was actually signed on July 2nd but there was a mix-up at the printer's and he mistakenly put in the 4th instead. So happy 2nd of July!