That is all.

I was reminded of this wonderous fact when I received what I can only expect will be my last high school graduation gift.... yes, only 2 years after the fact. But that's fine by me! It was a welcome surprise and the lady stuck a very apologetic note on the card she had written all that time ago.

We are back in Indiana, safe and sound. The road trip went nicely, both ways. On the way down, we listened to The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. It was a fascinating, if dated book. The writing is excellent and the pacing lent itself well to a shorter read. Very movie-like in places.

Unfortunately, Mr. Wells was a socialist and some of his anti-capitalist ideas didn't age so well. But he had some eye-opening things to say about society. Wells is often cited as a forerunner of science fiction, and I think his focus on characterization and the consequences of science are some of his fiction's best qualities.

And so at home I got to see Granny and Grandad and Aunt Kate and all the cousins. And then tons more friends at Candace's graduation. It went extremely well, the turn-out was excellent, and I even got away without a breath of helium. Can't say the same for my pals Jordan and Sam... ah well.

In any case, afterwards we went bowling and had much fun. I am convinced more and more that bowling is in reality an extremely difficult skill, requiring hours and hours of practice to make moderate progress. Yet, I'm still perfectly content not being good at it, because 90% of the fun of bowling is just doing something you feel awkward doing -- and then laughing at your friends when they do no better.

You can suggest, "Hey, let's go bowling," and sound quite serious.

In reality, you're more likely asking, "Let's go pick up huge balls that are waaaaay too heavy for us to realistically hold with three fingers, and try *not* to throw them in long gutters towards some pins at the end of the alley. Yeah!" The second option is so much better. ;)

My good pal Jordan (Gordo on the list over there) gave me a cool book by Bruce Wilkinson called Set Apart. It was a late birthday present (gawsh, when *is* my birthday celebration going to end?) It's about personal holiness and though I haven't finished it, it's already been very good. Thank you very very much Jordan. :)

Shiloh in the summer was beautiful, like it is all the time. I'm sure you've often read in books about a heavy, perfume-like scent of things growing in the springtime. Well, rather than being a literary cliche, I actually experienced it, and in fact lived in a place where it happens. Perhaps that's random, but I thought that was cool one day last week.

I didn't get away without the token weed-whacking and driveway work. Shoveling gravel and handling a machete gave me a couple minor blisters... this office work makes my hands soft. ;)

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So now, it was a Monday morning today again. I mailed out some of the last items in my small first push on the eBay project at work. I suppose tomorrow or the day after marks the beginning of Phase 2. Which basically means... more items and more things to juggle, but that's what a store is. And more ambitious things to sell... like huge tea sets or maybe even a vintage washer machine.

Yeah, if I can sell a vintage washer machine, that would officially rock.

And before I sign off for the night, I must introduce you to a new blog on my list... Dex's!

Yes, it's true, our entire suite is now in the blogging in-crowd. I quiver with fear.

And now, I get to poke fun at Dex, which I wouldn't, but he *is* my roommate, so here I go... he's from "San Antoino" you know, so go to his profile, click San Antoino and see all the other keyboard-challenged people living in that illustrious town. :D

::sighs as he is befuddled yet again by a game of solitaire::

::alt-tabs back to Internet Explorer::

"Oh, my page finally loaded!"

::reads for a minute and then clicks to the next blog; goes back to solitaire::

::sighs as yet another game comes irresistably to a point where no further cards can be moved::

::gives up in disgust and goes away for wonderful wonderful home food... which makes up for dial-up::

Had an awesome Memorial Day. Only worked a few hours, packaging up some items for work. I pronounce all the items in the ebay store sold. So sorry all of you -- I know that most of you had your eye on that cat made of spoons. Whatever are you going to do now?

Our church had a day of fun in the sun. It was awesome to spend several hours in a park, eating hotdogs and playing volleyball and guitar too. The weather was beautiful and it was probably the coolest Memorial Day I've had yet.

Couldn't resist. This is bad. People shouldn't make quizzes like this, and other people *definitely* shouldn't actually take them. Or put them on their blog for that matter.

Your SAT Score of (edited :D ) Means:

You Scored Higher Than Howard Stern You Scored Higher Than George W. Bush You Scored Lower Than Al Gore You Scored Lower Than David Duchovny You Scored Lower Than Natalie Portman You Scored Lower Than Bill Gates

Your IQ is most likely in the 130-140 range

Schools that Fit Your SAT Score: College of William and Mary New York University Boston College United States Naval Academy University of California, Berkeley

Gasp! A whole half-week since I've blogged?

Work has been busy. I now know that I do not have sweet doll hair-fixing skills. It's just one of those things I didn't experience in my childhood really. I did learn how to have a good pretend war...

Anyway, hopefully soon I'll have pictures that will... explain all that. Ahem.

My car is overheating badly. I filled it up with radiator coolant and even had a daft little adventure walking across town looking for oil one day... there's more pubs than gas stations in this town, I think. And yet, the car still zips up to max temperature after no more than 10 minutes driving. Is the gauge just broken and going bonkers? That's dangerous.

The search for graduate schools has officially commenced. I still can't believe it's high time to do that, but graduate school doesn't have that misty, "naww, that could never happen!" feel to it any more.

I intend to look a lot more... and it's always good to have more information than enough when it comes to these sorts of things... but for preliminaries, I've requested information from Syracuse, Rice, University of Texas, Baylor, and American. Many more will follow I think.

Three of those colleges are in Texas. :D

Also, I haven't even bothered yet looking at foreign schools. Hmmm.

Benny and I just watched one of the saddest things I've seen this summer. It's this one section on the third disc of the Return of the King extended edition. It is a tribute to a young filmmaker named Cameron Duncan. He died at the age of 17, of cancer, and was recognized as one of the best filmmakers of his age.

Shortly before his death, Peter Jackson invited him to come tour the set and use one of his film crews to make a few short films. He did, and wow, they are incredible. His last few relate specifically to his fight against cancer. I regret that his website doesn't have them, but if you know anyone who has the RotK DVDs (and I know you do :D ) then go watch the Cameron Duncan section. Really moving.

Probably one of my favorite parts of being in Indiana is getting to be around my family's church. (Brownie points moment: my favorite part is being with my family! :D ) Ahem.

Anyway, our church is a member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. This is a really good group of people in Kokomo, and I wanted to comment on one part that I have really grown to respect, and that is psalm-singing.

Unlike... pretty much any other church I can remember going to, this one sings purely the Psalms, in verse form, without instrumental accompaniment. That does several things to worship.

For one thing, it makes you sit up and think. There is no piano, no guitar, to keep you on cue. You can't grow lax in your singing, because if you did, there'd be nothing left.

The people sing in tenor, soprano, alto and bass parts, and when everyone gets into a tune they know, it's gorgeous to hear people singing and not half-mumbling like they do in other churches. I think people don't realize how much they rely on instrumental backing until they try and sing without it. It's rather a shock.

Of course, the words couldn't be better. It is the Psalms, after all. But putting them in the context of song is very very different from proclaiming them from a pulpit or praying them in your private devotions.

For example there are numerous deprecatory psalms (is that the Hummel-Term© for it?) that simply never make it into modern worship songs. It sounds weird in song to our ears... but it shouldn't.

Not to mention I consider it real vocal training... all the sight-reading and part-picking and such. Not that I'm aiming to be the next Placido Domingo, but I do think it's fun.

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Tomorrow we begin packing for the summer's return to the South. We'll get to spend half a week in me old stomping grounds of Alto, Texas -- travelers are stopped to intake the grand vistas of our abode *and* the high point of El Camino Real, by a single blinking stoplight. So much for a worthy tourist attraction.

In any case, #47 (my sister Candace) is graduating from high school and will have her ceremony on the third. She needs (and I think has) sweet speech-writing skills. Gawsh!

So huzzah for muggy days and East Texas humidity.

Well, I hate to post about work, but perhaps later I'll think of something more exciting to write about. :D

Today I got to play around with a projector and a remote control and a laptop. It was actually more fun than it sounds like it would be. There was an important luncheon of some type here at the Rescue Mission and I needed to set up a powerpoint presentation for it. I now have sweet projector-setting-up skills. Yessssssss.

Yesterday I went to the warehouse type building where we keep all the stuff I'm supposed to put on eBay. There's a lot of junk and I'm thinking a lot of it isn't truly worth our time to even put up for online sale. Still, there is some pretty cool (and old) things, and I suppose my major puts a bit more interest in handling old things.

The building was once some sort of printing place, perhaps even a newspaper or magazine building of some type; I've forgotten the story behind it. The inside is very dusty and if it weren't for the street just outside, it would get extremely quiet in there.

I brought my beloved iPod and that helped a lot. Huzzah for the Beatles.

Here's a picture of my little studio. It's not much, but it's good enough for eBay.



I put down my iPod at the end of one item and went to the adjacent room for the next one. That's when I noticed a long, dark, steep staircase. My curiosity was aroused and so I went up, stumbling against the narrow steps.

There were lights at the top and after flipping the switch, I saw that there were a number of rooms filled with boxes and random parts of machinery, toys and Christmas wrapping paper.

One small door was just a foot over my head, yet the bottom stopped at my knees. Two pegs kept it shut. I put my ear to the door and could hear the wind howling outside. The door bore an exit sign, but unfortunately I couldn't get it open.

I turned around and saw an unusually wide door. Inside was a small room with shoddy flooring and no real walls. A pale light from one end gave the wispy insulation in the walls a strange appearance. Opposite me in this little room was a wooden gate bearing a warning sign. Beyond that was an old elevator shaft.

I'd known there was a cargo elevator in the building, but I never imagined it looking this cool. Silver insulated ventilation tubes and dusty woodwork gave the upper regions of the shaft a mine-like appearance. Some faded green plastic or paper at the top let in a bit of light, with interesting effect when clouds masked the sun.

Old cables and a series of rusted counterweights hung at the top, while the cage-like elevator sat below. There was even a make-shift ladder along one of the elevator railings. The whole thing struck me as unusual for that sort of building. So Old West and mysterious.

Anyway, if you imagine my job is just playing with projectors and exploring old buildings, you'd be mistaken. These are only just the little semi-interesting bits I choose to write about. :D

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Today I got a real vehicle, oddly enough. I asked a few days ago for a vehicle from my boss. A bit bold?

Yeah, initially he turned me down. But then yesterday he randomly came by my office and said he had a small silver Taurus I could use. No more bike rides to work, whoopee!

They got the insurance, title and registration taken care of, so today over my lunch break I decided to take it for a test spin. Besides, I needed to know where the Kokomo post office was, if I were going be shipping eBay items.

After searching for several minutes, I found the vehicle with matching description. A small, silver Ford Taurus, pretty old. I walked up, unlocked it, opened the door, and immediately the entire inside cab portion of the door came crashing off.

Chuckling, I stood there holding it for a minute, unsure what to do, and then climbed inside. Keeping it carefully in place, I slammed the door shut before it had the chance to fall.

It idled well enough, only requiring a little help at the low spots. I let it run for a minute while I tested the controls. The power locks and windows still work, and for a 13-year old car, that's not bad. Over 250,000 miles on it. Wooooooow.

The seat was tilted towards the door, due, I believe, to the rather portly previous owner. The radio seek button goes only up, not down, so if you pass a good radio station you need to go all the way around to get to it again.

Other than these few quirks, I enjoyed a 2-mile run around Kokomo with the windows down. And I even found the post office on my second try around the block.

I just found out good Dr. K has a blog. Everyone go read it!

I am going to have 2 and possibly even 3 classes with Dr. Kubricht this fall. Yes, it's going to be my Dr. K semester.

Anyway, I highly recommend the "wisdom of Dr. Ku" section on the right side of his blog. Each line is a bit of, ahem, wisdom he has spouted at one point or another. I think I was present for a few of those, when he said them in class. He is a great professor, but he just gets himself in trouble sometimes. :D

This weekend passed quietly. I took some nice walks around the neighborhood and God was very close.

I've continued fighting my new video card. It refuses to work and yet, it also refuses to completely fail. It works just enough and in the right ways that I keep getting a little hope that it will ultimately work in my computer. I think I'll send it back... if it's just fundamentally incompatible, no use me trying to make it work any more. So that was a minor annoyance.

This morning at work they had their weekly staff meeting, bright and early at 8 on Mondays. They apparently celebrate staff birthdays at the end of every month. Well, it isn't the last Monday of the month but that didn't stop them from singing me happy birthday. They even made me hold a stupid "Birthday!" sign while I had my picture taken.

I laughed and they said everone has to do it. At least it's not just a humiliating prank. :D

So hooray for birthdays... all.. month... long!

Check out the product of my efforts at work recently. Isn't it cute? :D

So little for right now. But soon it must grow. ::sighs::

Today I saw Revenge of the Sith. Don't worry; no spoilers here. All I'll say is now I want to re-watch the original trilogy, so I know everything turns out alright. :D

The video for Coldplay's Yellow is also the most disappointing video ever. The lead singer can walk on a beach and sing to a cameraman as he walks away. Very impressive.

My computer is crashing randomly when it tries to use my new graphics card. ::cries::

Computer problems... I'm learning more about fixing them every day without really wanting to.

And I got a sweet new ride to work. No matter that it's a rusted old girls' bike without effective brakes... works for me. And now my dear dear sister doesn't have to chauffeur me around. Huzzah.

And tomorrow is Friday. The grand day of the unveiling of the eBay store! Yes, so I hope.

1. Hotdogs!
2. My sister had a graduation reception at church.
3. My computer parts came in and my baby is working good again! (I know, i'm lucky it didn't blow up and that I can be here blogging. :D)
4. I finally finished the Magician's Nephew. And started the Lion/Witch/Wardrobe.