...So Shimmin and I are getting married in 16 short days. That isn't very long at all. I'm already at the point that I think about it about once every 3 minutes, I think, and I'm having a hard time doing anything else... reading... working... driving... driving...

...So I ran into the car in front of me when I was parking in the office lot today. It was a tight fit because the car on my right had parked about an inch from the line, and I was nervous about pulling in and missing their mirror with my mirror (same make and model of car to my right, interestingly enough, theirs was gold, however, and mine is green, so if I had been too close our mirrors WOULD have hit)... and I wasn't paying too close of attention to the car in front of me. It was a big big truck, and they had not pulled through all the way and their truckbed was jutting about a foot into my space. This would have been fine, and I wouldn't have hit their car, except that their trailer hitch was sticking yet another foot into my space. I didn't notice this when I was parking though, and hit the trailer hitch. I wasn't going very fast, so their big strong steel trailer hitch is fine. My flimsy plastic bumper and sheet thin license plate, however, are not. The license plate got put into the car. The funniest part about this is that I knew when I sort of encountered resistance, so I visually checked where their car was in front of me, saw I was good, and so took my foot off the brake, and allowed my car to idle into the car further, which is what caused most of the damage. Idling into their hitch! Surely a plastic bumper would be stronger than that! But it wasn't....

...So I'm in the 2nd year of a two year advanced leadership training program at my church. The goal of these classes is to train leaders to be better layleaders, pastors, and church-planters. Shimmin and I intend to plant a church when we get married, with him being the principal bread-winner and me being the principal church-planter. Last year I went to all but one of the classes (missed the class the week of Thanksgiving), and still I didn't feel I learned much. But about the time this semester was starting in September I realized that it was all my fault, that there were things to learn there, and I was really being a dork about it all. At our church they have a lot of classes you can take on weekends and stuff, and I take most of those, so when they start a topic and then go more indepth into it at VALT (the name of the program), I have about 50% review, and 50% new stuff. But like turning my brain off for the first 50% is the wrong attitude. You can always use refresher courses on Bible basics. It's not like you get saved, pray the sinners prayer, and then go on to better things... you have to revisit the Gospel time and time again if you're going to grow in your faith. Paul and David and Solomon and Jesus all say to meditate on the scriptures repeatedly. So now that I have the right attitude I'm thirsting for more stuff.

...So now there's a girl who works for me that's taking VLI, a different set of classes, that our church just started offering this year, remotely, because they're taught by all sorts of renowned theological scholars and stuff, and I am not doing VLI because I am already one year into VALT, and you don't stop a program to start another. But VLI is more challenging. It's harder to understand, the concepts are more challenging, it essentially is a distance learning seminary. So the girl that works for me gets CD's of every lecture, and I have been listening to them while I clean up maps at work. They're good. They're REALLY good. The professors that teach them teach on the topics for which they are experts, and boy do they know their stuff.

...So the main question is, should I keep just listening to the VLI stuff and learning from it not quite as much as I would if I were sitting in class listening to it and taking notes, and then go get an M.Div. or at the very least an M.A.R. from Trinity next year when I'm done with VALT, or do I quit listening to the VLI CD's and really do VLI next year? I'm leaning toward the M.A.R. b/c I don't really want an M.Div. (well mostly I don't want to do quite that much work while working full-time... I'm sort of scared of learning Greek & Hebrew, but the OT & NT Surveys & Hermeneutics & Homeletics & Christian Counselling courses are right up my alley (and besides if you get an M.Div. you don't have much time to devote to Christian Counselling which I think prepares you a lot more to be a pastor)). But VLI is at my church, with my friends, taught by Vineyard pastors with doctorates, and Trinity, well, isn't. And VLI is a lot cheaper (of course I'm getting VLI for free now, minus the service requirements, although I think that VALT service requirements are actually more stringent...). Right now I'm also planning to take all of the intensives, 10 hour weekend courses for VLI that cover various stuff. The first one is the Synoptic Gospels.

...So Shimmin and I have been thinking about where to plant a church. Right now it looks like when he's done with his PhD. we'll just go where he gets a job, which could be anywhere b/c his program is the best of its kind in the country... he could be a teacher, professor, or researcher just about anywhere. The Ivy League schools that I've looked at don't have our church's denomination represented are Brown University, in Providence, RI, Dartmouth, in Hanover, NH, Penn, in Philadelphia, PA, and Princeton, in Princeton, NJ. The National Labs are National Renewable Energy Lab, in Golden, CA, and Oak Ridge, in Oak Ridge, TN. Anyway... we don't know where we'll end up. Does anyone who happens to read this know of a good church that preaches Kingdom Theology in any of these cities? I really want to go somewhere where they don't have a comparable church, and I think Shimmin does too.

...So I'm going to go do some reading for VALT.

This weekend I was a greeter at church, my paternal grandfather's cousin's daughter-in-law threw me a bridal shower, I got to ride two hours each way to said shower with shimmin's sister and mom, ate at the original pancake house, got worried b/c my mother apparently got hurt in physical therapy (she said she broke her hip but the surgeon says the x-rays do not show that), I checked out the new pub in town and waited for hours for morris to show up there (new pub cool, morris being late, uncool) only to call him and tell him I was tired and going home, and I had yummy Tex-Mex food last night with shimmin. There, consider yourselves updated.

I have been doing a lot of rather weird thinking. Saturday, On the way to shimmin's parent's house to meet his mom and sis I had the windows down and this song "Romeo and Juliet" or something that the Indigo Girls do a cover of came on, only it wasn't them, so I can assume it was the original version, and the smell of dew and rain and cut grass and baled hay came into the car. I think I lived in the moment from then until I got to their house. Not in some other moment, like anticipating the future ones, or the ones that just passed, seconds earlier, but in straight up state reality. It's kind of interesting when that happens.

There's an Eagles song from Hell Freezes Over called "Learn to Be Still" that talks about that. I spent an entire summer in Washington trying to learn all about that, but I'm afraid I didn't really learn anything b/c I was running around all over town and busy all the time, dating the wrong guys, chasing after others, and although it was the summer after my having become a Christian, you wouldn't have known it except from my presence in church with my dad and his wife on Sundays.

But I had it down for that whole car-ride. And I had it down for a car-ride this morning that took me through my old stomping ground... the neighborhood adjacent to the house we lived in when we first moved here (which is now levelled) and the high school. I looked at the houses and the colours and the sounds (like the brickroad under the car) and the smells and all of those reality filter programs blind us shut down for my enjoyment. And yesterday, at kickboxing class there was just sweat and me and music and muscles and it was the same. I want more time like that.

What I really want though, is to be able to pray like that. To focus, to pray, not think and have to constantly remind myself to get back on track to praying. And to be truly present in that moment when someone is talking to me, rather than off in lala-land. Of course, there's one area of my life in which this happens consistently, and that would be when I'm spending close time with shimmin. It's impossible for me to be thinking "Man I love him," whilst thinking about something else.

Anyway, what are other people's thoughts about that kind of thing? Am I nuts for noting this inconsistency in my thought-life, or can the rest of you relate?

My dad sent me this editorial on 9/17/2001. It moved me deeply then, and it moved me deeply just now. Figured some of you might like to read it.

B Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald:

It's my job to have something to say. They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard. What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause. Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve. Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together. Let me tell you about my people.

We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement.

We are fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.

IN PAIN

Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

THE STEEL IN US

You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange:

You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started. But you're about to learn.

As some of you are aware, my mother has been having health problems her whole life; the most recent set of disasters beginning with a fall that shattered her kneecap, resulting in a botched prosthetic knee surgery, which resulted in another fall that left five broken leg bones. She has been completely unable to bear any weight for two years.

Well, now she has gotten surgery and has a new right femur and knee, which hooked nicely onto her already prosthetic hip, and she can be rightly called The Bionic Woman, given that her left knee and hip are also prosthetics. The physical therapy folks at the hospital she is in have been in to stand her up twice a day since the operation last Tuesday. This is a big deal given that she had not been able to stand for the previous two years.

So I'm happy for my mom. She may finally be able to walk again in a few months. The problem is that because of Medicare (nobody with health problems like hers can get real health insurance) and some random rules and regulations, if she can't walk and isn't totally rehabilitated in just 47 days, she's not going to be able to come to my wedding. That is a big deal to me. If she can't come, I understand, but her presence there is really important in my head, although there's not much I can do to change things. I need a miracle. Prior to the surgery she had been in a nursing home b/c she chose to move in with my great aunt, six hours away from me by car three years ago, and that aunt can't take care of her due to health problems of her own. Her doctor doesn't think she's even rehabilitation material yet, so he's sending her back to the nursing home until she is a little more healed up. So they're not even starting the rehabilitation yet. Please pray for her.

Fifty days from right now I will either be having a great time preparing for the party that shimmin's parents are going to throw for our close family, or I will be freaking out. That's ok, freaking out a little is all right, especially the day before you get married.

In other news, all of the people at my church have started posting to Live Journal, and I have not, and I feel a little left out. Why, have I not? Well, its the premise of it... and I hate to be a poser. So instead I told myself that I'd mosey over to /. and post in my own journal. So I'm here.

Rode the train all 14 hours and back to Colorado to visit shimmin's grandparents last week. Sweet sweet people, quite elderly though, so they won't be there for the wedding. So I went with him to meet them and we had fun. It was nice to be in a place that wasn't humid, and it was nice to have a rest. I highly recommend the train to anyone, provided you have the sense to get a sleeper. We didn't. Stayed up almost all night on the way home b/c I couldn't get comfy. Way there I slept like a baby though.

My mom had surgery Tuesday, and I went down to Nashville for it. Her right knee and femur were replaced. Doc didn't have to do the hip, which is good. Mom's still afraid of falling again though, so she didn't want to stand up when the physical therapist was ready to do it on Wednesday. She hasn't been able to walk or stand for about two years, so standing up is a big step. Hopefully she will rehabilitate all right and maybe even be walking by the day of the wedding.

Picked up the invitations today. Now I have to go homoe and spend tonight, tomorrow night, and the weekend addressing them. Yes, shimmin is going to help, but addressing 150+ invitations is still a little daunting. They need to be all done and in the mail by Monday.

Anyway, I intend to post here more often. I may even post some "religious" stuff, or random thoughts that I've been having, like I used to do. Feel free to comment when I do so, but please just don't bother if you're just going to troll. I think that everyone here knows I'm a Christian, and that for the most part, I don't embody any of the negative stereotypes that Christians have, and if you don't know it, go back through my posting history and figure it out. Don't comment without doing some homework.

Now I finally know how all of you feel. A topic about which I know considerably more than the average /. user has finally come up, and I am frustrated beyond measure. There ought to be a moderation option "Just Plain Wrong," and I ought to have an unlimited supply of mod points for this one.

I am referring to the thread about the power outage in the northeast today, and I have had to make myself quit reading posts and replying to them. Not that I've done a lot; I've only replied to two, but in order to explain why the parent posts were wrong I had to write a lot. Read my most recent one if you'd like to learn something about power systems.

Eek. Now I know how you all feel when someone goes on and on about something you know is garbage. Especially if they do so in a moderately trollish way. I will try never to post something on a topic that I only know a little about just b/c I don't ever want anyone to be able to feel about me like I do about a lot of people right now.

Hello everyone. I need a bit of advice not for me actually, but for my dad. My dad has received an appointment from an FLA (Four Letter Acronym... hehe) for a few years in DC. I'd really like to brag on my dad and tell you all which one and for what, but I'm going to leave him a little anonymity. Anyway, he's going to be moving there with his wife and my little sister. They're looking to live in an apartment somewhere. What I need are suggestions of good areas for them to look in that are close to a nice little Christian school for sis to attend (she's starting kindergarten this fall), and perhaps suggestions of such schools. I am not sure, but given the appointment, I think that price is not much of a concern.

Any info would be appreciated.

I am in the interesting position of getting (having?) to choose my own job title for new business cards. But I am at a loss to describe what I do with a few simple words.

I'm in charge of shipping, invoicing, quoting, and receiving. I manage a team of Simulation Artists (practical definition of Simulation Artist is Digital Cartographer), who work on map-making projects, I make maps myself sometimes. I also have to draw up contracts for purchases and site licenses to our software, and sometimes sign them, so my title needs to lend a little authority. I also design all of our ads, brochures & software packaging, and am in charge of getting them printed & put into the appropriate journals. So technically I am also a Graphic Artist, but I don't want that title.

Here are suggestions I've had, none of which appeal to me too well:

Senior Simulation Artist
Marketing Coordinator (my old title)
Chief Cartographer
Chief Transmission Cartographer
Marketing Associate
Associate
Senior Simulation Specialist
Simulation Art Consultant
Director of Simulation Art
Project Manager
Simulation & Marketing Coordinator
Director of Administration
Administration Director

What thinkest you all? I have to think of something pretty soon.

can you see us, in your big blue car,
driving backward over mountains,
dressed up in our superhero pajamas?
well I'm proposing just that kind of adventure
in which the two of us first fold out some lawnchairs
first stop is the scrubgrass down by Hwy 12
and watch the orange sherbert sun
melt down into the lake, which is quicksilver...

and we'll sit and we'll think
and we'll know that we're small
and it's gone in a blink
and when we catch our breaths we'll remember

that we're writing a song
a song about everything
not just some ditty for kids to sing
when they hear it on the radio someday

well this is absolutely ordinary
the two of us, jobless, homeless
rich beyond our wildest fantasies
and we've got some fantasies, let me tell you, fact
nobody we know's never been paralyzed by their dreams
or their addictions
at one time or another in their lives
but still none of us is a grownup
to hell with the grownups we say
with their atom-bashing, soul-smashing machines

and then we close our eyes
and we visualize
that we're carving utopia down to the size
of a song

a song about everything
like when you showed me your grandma's ring
and said why not put that in a song
and we're singing along

to a wordless piece of jazz that we found on a cassette
in the upholstry of the passenger seat
and we like it that way
we've got intentions, insane interventions
we've got cinergy, energy, chemistry, and serendipity now
throwing twenty-dollar bills out the window
to prove we're invincible
careless, fearless, irresponsibly free
yeah we're reckless and wild
there's a turtle in the middle of the road
there's like ten million shooting stars
we're spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning
we're a dot on your screen
we're unfolded and green
on the highest horizon, laughing loudest of all
people are staring, it's the summer of love
it's the end of the century
look up the moon is a scoop of vanilla ice cream
are we here? are we real? is this only a dream?

in which we're writing a song?
a song about everything
or is this only a summer fling
we'll remember in a poloroid someday?

it doesn't have to be long
to be a song about everything
remind yourself with a piece of string
you're always writing a song about everything

about everything

I think I must be finally a grownup. Because I just got the telephone call from doom.

"Someone has nominated you as one of Central Illinois' Most Wanted. Upon arrest, you will spend an hour in jail at The Outback Steakhouse to benefit Muscular Dystrophy*. Bail is set at $1575 or one hour of your time. While you're there, The Outback will feed you its version of "bread and water." When would you like to schedule your sentence?"

"Oh... I see... can I find out who has er... ratted on me?"

"Sorry... they're in the witness protection program. Can I get your fax number to send you the details? You may begin collecting bail money now."

Hmm... Well, I went ahead and scheduled it. Then I appealed to my brother for a start on that bail money in the email I was already in the middle of writing him. This is really proof that I am a grownup. Moreso than when I bought a car. Moreso than when I bought a house. Moreso than the reality that shimmin and I will be getting married in 130 days. Someone out there... thinks that not just me, but also MY FRIENDS, are rich enough to give their charity $1575.00. Which we probably (collectively) are. At least I'll get a free steak out of the deal...

*I think it was Muscular Dystrophy... I'm really not sure. I've heard of this fund-raiser before, whatever it is. But usually I hear of like the mayor or the US Senator getting jailed. Not me. Unless I can officially be lumped in with them now... ooh, scary. Anyway, I figure I'll find out when I get the fax with the rest of the information.

This morning I had the pleasure of finding this in my inbox:

Dear [Liora],

I'm excited too. I'm excited for you coming over too [Liora]. I think that to go get milkshakes is a good idea. And going to the playground. I like to play with you a lot and I miss you. I have a surprise when you get here [Liora]...two surprises. I love you too.

Love
YOUR LITTLE SISTER

She is five years old. The all caps at the bottom represent where she typed her name herself (in all caps). I'm going to be seeing her in one week and one day. And she's going to get to meet shimmin for the first time! That'll be exciting. Man I miss her.

So... For those of you just tuning in, I am not a techie. I cannot claim the title of geek nor nerd, yet I find myself reading slashdot frequently. Why? Because it's interesting, of course.

So I've been thinking recently about how nice it would be to snag a bunch of photos of shimmin and I and my house and my yard, and the fabulous paint job that I did on the living room and dining room, but I realize that doing so means two things: (1) I'd have to acquire some webspace and maintain a website, and (2) If I were to show you folks any of that stuff, to maintain sufficient anonymity, I'd have to make sure that I was using a server that allowed such.

I am not above learning html for it (I do, after all, have the html cheatsheet, which hasn't steered me wrong thus far), and I figure it would be easy, since I managed to pass my VB, Java, and C classes at the U without any troubles at all (apparently I have the mind for the work... just not the background). What sayest you all? Any thoughts?

I have been fighting back tears all morning. Not sad tears, not really happy tears, not really grave or somber tears either, some kind of other tear I am unfamiliar with. I guess sometime while puttering around this morning listening to country music (I do that when I'm in a certain mood... don't worry... it doesn't happen often) I had the great mother of all realizations: I'm getting married. I'm going to stand up in front of a church full of friends and family and pledge to love and honor and cherish shimmin until death do us part. I'm getting teary just thinking about it... This is weird... I've never cried at a wedding before, so the prospect of crying about my own is really strange.

It's not sad really. It's beautiful. But it's scary, and although I know I will mean all of those things (I would mean them if I were to say them today even) there's something very serious about it. Something I didn't get about love and marriage and relationships and God and I don't even know what else. I'm only starting to get it now. Like when shimmin told me that he cried all through his sister's wedding because she was crying all through her wedding and I asked why, and he said it was because his sister was getting married I didn't get it. I still don't get it. I'm not sad at all, but I'm not really sure why it is I keep nearly bursting into tears. Can someone explain it to me? Thanks.

The first is this quotation:

• "You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is white, the best golfer is black, The Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the US of arrogance and Germany doesn't want to go to war."

The second is described by Twirlip of the Mists in this journal entry.

Well... yesterday was an interesting day. One that I will remember for the rest of my life. So... bits of my yesterday in order of importance...

I got home from work yesterday and everything seemed normal... I noticed it was a bit chilly in the house so I went around and closed all the windows, and did some other mundane stuff, then suddenly heard a knock at the door. I thought it would be the neighbor boy, asking if he could mow my lawn again this year when it needs it, but I should have known better, because Jacob knocks like a cop (little, little boy, big big knock).

Well, I opened the door and suddenly was confronted by none other than shimmin, down on one knee, asking me if I would marry him. My reply was "Of course I'll marry you!" but I was so surprised that I couldn't even figure out which hand to give him. Somehow he ended up handing me the ring and I put it on myself. It's a very pretty ring, silver in color (I'm told this is white gold) and a very pretty stone. Shimmin is amazing, and I'm very excited about the prospect of sharing the rest of my life with him. We plan to get married in the fall, although we haven't set a date.

Anyway, in other news... I installed a shower myself above the clawfoot tub in my bathroom, as some of you know. Anyway, I've had a problem with water pressure dropping to... not quite to what could be called a trickle, but to such a point where rinsing shampoo out can be a trick. Anyway, I have speculated this only happens during neighborhood key water usage hours, because it's worse at some times than others. Anyway, yesterday it got really bad, and I got really annoyed and said "Just stop it!" then figured I might as well do the real McCoy thing and said "In Jesus' Name, stop it!!!" Well, you can guess what happened b/c I'm telling the story. I heard a click in the pipe somewhere, and then the water came out way better than it ever has before... I had previously thought that at offpeak hours I had full water pressure, but that was nothing... I have a real shower! That works! And isn't weak or wimpy! Anyway, that was pretty exciting.

Also, yesterday morning, I did some praying for my mom who's been a virtual invalid and hasn't been able to walk or take care of herself (even toilettries) for a little over a year due to a botched knee surgery that led to her shattering her kneecap and breaking both tibias and fibulas, and her right femur. So yesterday morning I got to think about how I was really sick of having this bear of a woman in the place of my mom (I can't blame her... in her situation I'd likely be hundreds of times more bitter than her), so I decided to sit down and pray for her. And then, in one day, after weeks of no word on the surgical parts and no surgery date to fix her, and a pesky wheelchair, she got two great phone calls. One was the insurance, who said that her new electric wheelchair was in, and the other was from the surgeon's office, saying that the new hip/femur/knee part has been made and that provided it passes the stress test, she could be in surgery for it in four weeks... and they also said they may want to do the left knee first, and then she'd be in for that in just two weeks! It's amazing how things have looked up for her. When I called her yesterday afternoon, in addition to being happy for me for my big announcement, she was really happy about her life too, which was the first time in a long time for her.

Anyway, yesterday, which I thought would be an ordinary day, wasn't. Life is great, and I am still convinced that I hold my position as the most blessed person in the world.