From Psalm 139...

************************************
O Lord, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.

You hem me in -- behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Suck knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
************************************

For a believer, separation from God is only a state of mind. Physical distance and even the "darkness" David mentions, are not obstacles for God. In fact, perhaps it is during these times of difficulty that we can most simply and faithfully follow God without our own plans and impulses muddling up matters.

We are always so completely in His will that He has us hemmed in, behind and before. He is with us at the far corners of the world, and still there when we awake. Darkness is nothing to our God.

May the God of the universe, who knows us so intimately and cares for us where no one else can see us, bless us, try us, and lead us in His everlasting way.

Today we had room inspections. I got off of work and cleaned and cleaned for a few hours this afternoon. It was mostly Geoff and I, and we laughed pretty hard when Dex came in all flustered and starting snapping orders for everything that needed to be done... trying to explain to him that everything was *already* done, and yes, he hadn't had to do it all.

They always have room inspections before a preview weekend. We've got one in our suite this time, but still don't know anything about him. Perhaps we will be lucky and avoid the home-grown goat-farmer types that Spork had last time...

And sleep is the weirdest thing! I went to bed at midnight last night like a good boy, thinking I could get a good 8 or 9 hours of sleep, and laid there for half an hour. At last, I got up, tired of bed, popped open a Mountain Dew Amp (take a 20 oz Mountain dew and put all its caffeine in an 8 oz can), and studied Spanish for 2 hours. Geoff and Fuego were playing Counter Strike: Source in here, so Eric from downstairs and I studied our respective subjects on the couch to the constant sound of gunfire and grenades. Good times.

Speaking of Spanish... I feel sure Mr. Morales knows I am hurting in the vocabulary area. I would've thought grammar was the problem in the class, but I am doing at least mediocre on grammar. The hardest part is just knowing what those words mean in the first place! I'm happy that, if something has to be a problem, vocabulary is, because that's pretty easy to fix. Just... study lists, I guess.

And Spork, Pebble and I made a Wal-Mart run before the newspaper meeting this week, so I can't complain about the bad food when I *finally* have something other than Ramen to eat in here. DONUTS!!!!!!!!

Dr. Coppinger wrote me an absolutely glowing reference letter today, for my application to the Heritage Foundation. I was a bit taken aback by it, being written about a comparatively quiet student in his class a full year ago. But, Dr. C is cool like that, and I have no doubt his letter is one of my app's highlights.

::gets up to shut the door and close out Morris' Eminem-style rapping from across the hall::

There, better. Let's see. Ah, football. We've lost. Repeatedly. I guess that's kinda the story of 41 intramurals, but at least we have a good time with it (which is more than I can say for other floors on-campus). There is an outcry among the nerds for Counter Strike intramurals, but that's just sad. Go join the paintball club and do it in real life, or is that just too wacky and intimidating an idea? ;D

And I think that will be the end of today's post because I just heard... well imagine if a really high-voiced guy, not a girl now, but a really high-voiced guy screamed in response to a mortal blow... through a Kazoo... that's the sound I just heard. So yeah, catch ya later.

Spanish has been interesting so far.

Not having the first section of the class has been difficult, though I still feel that Elem. Spanish 2 was the way to go. Mr. Morales has a lot of fun with the class and genuinely cares about his students.

So this weekend shall be the weekend of the mighty study. Tonight I hope to knock out all the random loose ends of things that are due early next week, leaving tomorrow to study hard from the last six chapters of my Spanish textbook.

And no random national holidays on Monday, so it's our first 5-day school week. ::cries::

I'm really looking hard at doing an internship to complement my major in the fall, so I've started filling out some forms for those. Heavy stuff.

Fuego, Stryder, Gecko, Geoff and myself were up late playing DAOC last night... an ML3 raid took longer than we thought and so we went to Whataburger at like 2:30 in the morning. Saga has been pretty bad recently and supper last night was just horrendous; half the cafeteria bars were just empty of food. There was no selection so several hours later we were absolutely starving.

Before Whataburger, we had all agreed to order pizza, because that seemed more convenient. I got onto papajohns.com, ordered 2 large pizzas and started waiting. An hour after we received our order confirmation, there was still no pizza, so I called up the pizza place on my cell, which had been on the entire time.

The manager (whose name was Josh >: | ) told me that he couldn't deliver to my specified address, a PO Box. "No kidding," I thought. "Sir," I said "Don't you know where LeTourneau University is?" He said yeah. I had trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that probably half their orders come from this campus and yet they refuse to come to LeTourneau just because I didn't give a physical address. It's not as if they were lost or something, they knew exactly where to come, I had given them my buildling number.

He said he couldn't reach my phone, which should've been a problem on his end, and since they stopped delivered at 1 AM, and the phone call from me came at 1:10, he said he had "backordered" my pizza.

How on earth can you backorder a hot pizza!?

He just threw it away and gave up on us, and said he was sorry. To correct the misunderstanding, he actually recommended that we phone in our orders instead of using the internet, to avoid any confusion. I am sure that repeating that statement to the national office would insta-fire that manager, particularly if the call was recorded, as they said it might at the beginning of the call.

So anyway, yeah, we were mad, but whataburger is open 24 hours, so we made due.

And yeah, that rambled a bit from Spanish, but oh well. :D

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

There.

I feel better now.

So yesterday Spork and I had to go down to Facilities Services for work. A large shipment of roughly 60 boxes had come in and we were to take them from the warehouse floor onto pallets located up a flight of stairs. (To be honest, I'm surprised I can't quote you the exact number of steps since I walked up them so many times.)

These boxes were full of those heavy, glossy-paper brochures that the University sends out to inquiring folks. So, in the absence of a forklift, we got started. A mere five minutes into the operation, we were sweating and puffing, amused at doing this when our job description is "Data Entry Clerks."

Spork commented, while carrying up nearly 2-thousand brochures in his arms, that the stairs were like "climbing a mountain, except with way too much humidity." Something like that, yeah. :|

We had noted, on our repeated trips up and down the stairs, that about a dozen theater chairs of different styles were lying in rows on the warehouse floor. A door opened, and in came Dr. Austin, the University president, with his cabinet and other members of the upper executives. They were testing the chairs and debating their respective qualities for use in the soon-to-be constructed assembly buildling.

So here we were, 2 underclassmen, panting and grunting for our lowly wages, while the President enumerated the qualities of $150 and $300 chairs. The irony was supreme.

Needless to say, they took no notice of us and we did not receive the hoped-for forklift... or raise. :D

Here's your random word... thing... of the day.

I was bothered today by my pronunciation of the word February (don't ask why). Anyway, I've known for a while that the word does have 2 R's, and that most people omit the first because its easier to say.

Granted, but that doesn't make it correct.

So I've kept on saying Feb Roo Aree like a good boy until today, when I realized that in standard speech, I am quite unable to say it correctly without taking excruciating effort to anunciate it properly.

It kept coming out Feb Ruh Aree, or worse, Feb Woo Aree... like Elmer Fudd?

"That Wascally Wabbit wan away fwum me... in Feb Woo Aree!"

Ewwww.

So, it's Feb You Aree from now on. Huzzah for dictionary.com which admits this pronunciation appears in educated speech. Guess it isn't so bad anymore, after all.

Well, a post from the other side.

School has officially begun, even if today was only "go over the syllabus" day. I have spanish and statistics on MWF, with 3 history classes and a pre-law type course on the T days.

Geoff needed to go to Wal-Mart, and Pebble and I had a few things to pick up as well, but alas, he had a headache and has fallen asleep. It's... nearly nine o'clock and I have worries that we shall not make the trip tonight and poor Geoff may wake up at in a few hours and not be tired enough to go to bed at a sensible time.

Should I wake him up?

There's always the marshmallow gun. =)

It's sunny and 69 degrees out there. It's a gorgeous day, and Pebble and I are at our computers, eyes wandering to the weather outside, imagining ways to set up a hammock or go shooting on such a day. Ah well.

I've noted a few new faces on campus, but most people are still gone. Dex has also returned to our suite, and I heard that the Schmorgan is on the way now.

And when we are all assembled, the blueprints, hand-waving, and general commotion will begin as we debate (read: shoot Dex with marshmallow guns and beat him with pool noodles) our new room setup.

The "party room" setup, as we call our suite, is ideally suited for friends to come over and watch movies or whatever, so we like to encourage lots of seating and a good view of Schmorgan's monitor. Without delving into the jiving "drama," let's just say we have different ideas about how it's best done. =)

My to do list for tomorrow is as follows:

1. Check on financial aid status. My outside scholarship folks need reminding a lot.

2. Register for the newspaper as a class. I'm writing a music column this semester, in addition to general news reporting. Bolt and Shroud found an actually qualified photographer for this semester (and it ain't me!) ;D

3. Register for Spanish. ::shakes fist at Mr. Morales::

4. Get textbooks. I may only have to buy one or two. Borrowing friends or friends of friends textbooks is happy.

5. Get multiple copies of transcripts (let the fall internship applications begin!)

6. Talk to Dr. Kubricht, Ms. Weatherall, and maybe Dr. Johnson or Shroud about recommendation letters. Yeah.

So all in all, that's a rowdy bunch of activities that could very quickly and smoothly or... it could take the whole day. We'll see. Assuming it goes well, I can also work. Poor Ms. Weatherall was literally keeping dated mail inside her desk because no one was available to do it. Took me about 5 hours to get it all done, but music and pizza helped it go by.

Kind of aggravating to have not much to do today. I'm not able to start on the billion things I have to do tomorrow. Grrr.

Oh how I appreciate it, considering our school network service.

I ran down to the hotel front desk, got a CAT5 cable, and here am I. Wootage.

There have been rumors, however, that as of this current semester, a brand new T3 system has been installed in place of our previous 3 T1's. It *should* be far superior, but we shall see indeed how our distinguished (extenguished?) IT department handles this new toy.

(This post was written about 11 AM this morning, in the car, and I posted it this evening at the hotel.)

Rain is pouring down, the temperature is hovering at freezing, and just a few hours behind us in Indiana, the folks there are buckling down for a real ice storm. People are stocking up on grocery items, and preparing for possible power outages. I must admit I'm glad not to experience *that* part of northern life.

A few days ago I experienced the Indiana phenomenon known as Steak N Shake. Maybe it's not limited to Indiana. In any case, I can almost see, from that restaurant, why people would want to dip their fries in a chocolate shake. Almost. :D

I greatly enjoyed a visit to my family over the holidays, but I'm ready to be back at school, to be in Texas. As I grow older I find myself liking Texas, and the South in general, more and more. I enjoy hot summers, mild winters, and almost never having to worry about frozen roads. Sure, it happens, but only once or twice a year.

And snow? I can remember wishing for a white Christmas many times when I was littler, but after a few weeks spent almost entirely in snowed areas, I will welcome not having to deal with it either.

I introduced my family to my blog last night, and set my mom up with her own. And her link should be available on my list, so this is my official reminder to do that. ::goes and does it::

I was up until 3 AM last night, watching the new Josh Groban DVD with my little brother and playing Dark Age of Camelot. (Benny! Go to bed! :D )

Sometimes people will wander into my room at school and wonder how on Earth I can entertain myself with a game like Dark Age of Camelot. I do it for the friendships. Last night was a great example of why I play. Several people were online and available, (mostly LeTourneau pals with a few others).

Talking with those guys last night, I burst out laughing several times. Gamers as a whole (and I speak very generally here) have a sarcastic, exaggerated sense of humor, and most talk consists of sweeping generalizations or gross exaggerations. The smack talk and rants are simply priceless, espeically when someone dies to an enemy player and begins a heated 5-minute soliloquy on why the game is flawed. And yet, we continue to play anyway.

We each pay for our own account, but since we all borrow and share our passwords, we all essentially have access to numerous characters and typically eight or so accounts. It is a very open, come-and-go relationship we have.

And I still kid Geoff (Schmorgan) that some of our friends who play online don't *really* have bodies. Since all I ever hear is their voice, and never have seen them, I am quite sure that they are disembodied spirits, psychically controlling their character and simulating a human voice through the microphone. :D

Another priceless gaming moment came the night before. One of our players (a Marine off active-duty for the moment) and his wife (an apparently patient and wonderful woman, considering she lives with her husband :D ) were listening as Geoff and I described our woodland creature experiences with Dex. We retold the deer skin incidents, the skinned squirrel incidents, etc. Every one burst out laughing at our horror stories (but we were nice to Dex) except the poor, horrified woman, who commented that "this is what I get for playing with a bunch of boys."

And then her husband asked every person there if he had a girlfriend, to which we all replied in the negative. There was an unknowing silence, and then she began giving us poor, anti-social gamers tips what not to say to girls. It was hilarious, to say the least.

And this conversation took place while we were waiting for someone to return after a computer crash. Sometimes the best gaming moments happen when you can pause the gaming to talk to people. I have certainly found it true many times.

So today I bought what many people (whom I respect, mind you) consider to be the finest thing to ever happen to video gaming, ever. It is a recently released PC game by the name of Half-Life 2, about the exploits of one Gordon Freeman, a scientist forced to save the planet because of alien invasion.

Unoriginal sounding story, I know, but it is nonetheless impressive graphically. And I can't even complain about the story because even that is rumored to be very good. I can say nothing concrete, because I still won't disservice myself by reading up more on the game. I'm holding it as a surprise, one I greatly anticipated opening today.

I installed the game on this my laptop, a decently upgraded little Alienware Sentia. Alas, integrated video cards just weren't meant for the graphical splendors of Half-Life 2. :D

So I must wait to even see the game until I return to school. Ah well.

[EDIT: I've put some pictures of the trip up. Check the hyperlinks. I apologize ahead of time for the extreme large size of these images (over half a meg per pic). I don't have Photoshop or any other remotely usable graphics editing utility on my laptop yet. My recommendation? Right click them, bring them up in a new window (or a new tab, if you are one of those uber-hip Firefox users) and wait for them to load while you read on.]

I return, brushing off the snow, from the Grand Tour of the Frozen North. God blessed us with a safe, engaging trip from beginning to end. It was one of those driving types of vacations, something akin to a roadtrip.

My family of 7 (including the grandmother) rented a large 7-person van with ample storage space in the back. We dubbed it the "White Whale 2", since we had owned a very similar vehicle during my high school. I read Moby Dick almost nightly at the hotels, so I couldn't help but think of the fearsome whale of that book when riding inside our van.

I reprint here some writings from the road, for your enjoyment/amusement/blackmail purposes, as you see fit.

December 28, 2004

We awoke at 6 AM and left, as the van was already packed. We drove from Kokomo, Indiana (mid-Indiana, if you care to trace the journey on a map). After about 9 hours of driving, we arrived at our first vacation destination: Niagara Falls. It was really cool, but nothing in size after you've seen the Grand Canyon. I suppose that's true of most things. :D

The falls are certainly best viewed from the Canadian shore, so we got to cross over to Canada to the observation sidewalks. It was frigid. Mist from the falls rose from the thundering cascades, settled on trees, lightposts, banisters, and immediately froze to solid ice.

Not powdery snow, but hard, cold, solid ice. Brrr. Anyway, got some good pictures.

December 29, 2004

Today we woke up in Syracuse, New York. Yes, more hard driving after so many travels just getting to Niagara Falls. Well, today's drive was slightly more forgiving, and certainly more beautiful. We drove to the Atlantic coast in Maine, and meandered along the beaches, looking at lighthouses and skipping about on rocks.

The sea was extremely calm, there were clouds over the ocean, but they began to break for a beautiful sunset over the wooded western coast. We pulled out of the car for pics by a house and lighthouse station on its own little island a mere stone's throw from the continent.

How cool would it be to live there? Inconvenient for obvious reasons, but to be "Master & Commander" of your own little island... totally awesome.

We went to a very nice seafood place, and I had a $9 shrimp plate. Highly delicious. Except they were out of lobster; how is a fancy Maine seafood restaurant out of lobster?! Oh, and clam chowder is cool, by the way.

December 30, 2004

This morning we wake up in, uhm... some city in Maine, it starts with a B. If this missing piece of information *really* bothers you, I would be happy to oblige you with the proper name. In any case, we drove to Boston, Massachusetts.

Now Boston is a really, really, really cool town. Our first stop was Boston Commons, the city's central park and the oldest such park in America. Snow covered every bit of ground not traversed by feet or tires. I really enjoyed the city's vistas, and couldn't keep U2's Vertigo out of my head looking at all those buildings.

The city has a fascinating mix of old and new. Tall skyscrapers would rise up next to eighteenth century meetinghouses of the American Revolution. We walked by old Revolutionary cemetaries, saw the building where independence from Britain was first discussed publically, and ate at a real Boston bistro. I had the best meatball sub of my life.

My little bro and I even went on a street-navigating mission away from the self-guided tour of the city, while our family continued, to refill the parking meter at our van. Parking was difficult to find, and we wanted to keep our spot legally. O:-)

December 31, 2004

We drove from Boston into Pennsylvania, which, by the way, has some gorgeous rural areas. Even mountains! Who'd a thunk. We stopped in Promise Land State Park for a picteresque hike. Highly enjoyable. I even got to stand *on* the Lake of Bruce!

We stayed the night in central Pennsylvania. In the hotel room, my brother and sisters tried finding something semi-entertaining (and family-friendly!) to watch on TV, and finally settled on an opera. Yeah, it was either that or the Three Stooges. Actually, opera isn't so bad when you get into it... I actually enjoyed it quite a bit as it went on. An outing to opera is certainly on my list of things to do some time.

I circumambulated the hotel a few times, sipping my Nestea. The inn was situated atop a hill overlooking the town below, and farther in the distance, I could look up the invisible, dark mountains and see pairs of yellow lights driving up and down the interstate.

It was quiet, a gentle wind nipped the leafless bushes, and the cool temperature felt good after a long shower. It was night, and I recollected that these were the final hours of 2004.

I remember last New Year's Eve, feeling the portent of the moment. I was at home in Texas, drinking cranberry juice and watching fireworks explode from a distant hill. I knew what I wanted for the new year, and was filled with a cautious optimism.

This year was much more ambivalent. It was the New Year, and I had no resolutions. Again, I was presented with a grand new stretch of the unknown, and again I was cautiously optimistic, but without any plans. Maybe I'm just not sure where I'm going, or maybe I'm smarter than to imagine I can know that. Who knows. I have no resolutions.

Death Cab for Cutie's The New Year summed up my feelings pretty well. (The previous post has the lyrics.)

So in the absence of anything concrete, I embrace God's will for the coming year and trust that He will direct my footsteps.

The next day, the first bright day of 2005, we arrived back in Kokomo, Indiana, where I now sit. All in all, a fine trip.

I look forward to coming back to school.

These are the lyrics to The New Year, the first song from the Transatlanticism album by Death Cab for Cutie.

I would also recommend the music video, available from Launch. (Random piece of music trivia: this is one of two music videos I've ever seen that never shows the band. The other isn't worth watching.)

really really cool song....




so this is the new year.
and i don't feel any different.
the clanking of crystal
explosions off in the distance.

in the distance

so this is the new year
and I have no resolutions
for self assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions

so everybody put your best suit or dress on
let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogues bleed into one

i wish the world was flat like the old days
then i could travel just by folding a map
no more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways
there'd be no distance that can hold us back.

there'd be no distance that could hold us back

so this is the new year