Monday, November 17, 2003

The Mole is returning to TV in January 04.

I’m happy enough even though it’s a celebrity version. I do agree with Dave that ABC has chickened out by not bringing us another civilian version.

I can’t remember where I saw it, but apparently blogrolling.com was hacked. I’ve noticed at a couple sites using the service that there’s only one blog listed repeatedly. As a result, I am relunctant to reload my own blog page - I opened it before the hack took place and I have my blogrolls available. I use them as my bookmark lists.

Methinks I should come up with an alternative, separate blogroll page maybe.

LATER: blogoSFERICS reported it first. I saw the link mentioned at OTB.

LATERER: Given that I’m not a techie - I assume there’s someone out there who has created a hack for a manual blogroll to ping weblogs.com? Will your hack work with pMachine? I’ll have to search the message boards at pMachine to see if there’s something there as well.

LATERERER (11:55am): Looks like it’s fixed now. I opened a new window with my blog and the rolls are back to normal. I did take a few minutes to copy the links to a text file. So at least I have the info if this happens again. I’m still interested in exploring other options.

I’m up to Chapter 11 in Fellowship of the Ring. I think I’ve turned a corner - now that Strider is in the picture, I’m thinking that the action will pick up?

At the luncheon yesterday talk at our table turned to books. My pastor mentioned that one of his sons (who is now 15) had read LotR and that his chief complaint was that Tolkien took 9 pages to describe mud. Heh.

Sunday, November 16, 2003

I plan to change the look after Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d start work on the winter look. It’s ready to go, although I need to redo the rotating tagline in the new color scheme. I’ll do that this week.

Here’s the background:

I’m pondering a special Christmas Eve/Day temporary look, haven’t decided if I’ll do that or not.

So I just got home from the luncheon, which was very nice. Our student ministries pastor did a great job of honoring those of us who are involved with our teenagers. And he invited a couple who used to serve as volunteer youth leaders in their old church to encourage us in what we’re doing and offer advice in being better leaders. It was a great time.

There was a short video where he had a few of the kids say something in appreciation for their small group leader and there were quite a few tears as we heard what our kids think of us. For those who were shy of the camera, there were notes. I had a few notes handed to me - and this is why I’m humbled. Because what these girls said blew me away. You hope that you’re having an impact, but you never really know - but from what a couple of them said, I’ve helped them in their faith journeys and in life journeys as well. I had no idea that some throw-away comment I made months ago kept one of them from making a dreadful life decision. It brought home to me the awesome responsibility God has entrusted to me as their confidant, friend, mentor, sister, discipler.

There’s so much that I don’t do and should be doing - I don’t pray for them enough. That is going to change. I don’t spend enough time with them one on one. That is going to change. And I need to make sure that my own faith journey is on track - that I’m seeking after the Lord with all that is in me. I admit that I’ve been slipping on that lately. That is going to change.

If you had asked me 15 years ago if I pictured myself as a youth worker I would have laughed. Just three short years later I was pursuing after Young Life leadership at Robinson high school in Fairfax, VA. I served as a leader in that school community for 4+ years - and then spent 5+ years on staff with Young Life. I never imagined that I would be called to ministry with teenagers, but I love them like crazy. It’s a God thing, that’s for sure.

Thanks, Lord, for the gift of being a part of your work in the lives of a few girls. I pray that You help me to be the leader they need and want and that I’ll always point them to You.

In case you were dying to know, here are my plans for today:

1. Early service at church, followed by Sunday school (I’m a co-leader with the student ministries class). That should get me home by 11am, which will be a nice change of pace.

2. Student Ministries volunteer appreciation luncheon at 1pm. It’s being hosted at the home of one of my small group gals (whose father is an elder), so I grilled her on what exactly this thing is supposed to be. It was never clear if it was a lunch or what. Turns out it’s a catered lunch (Macaroni Grill - YUM). End time is supposed to be 4pm.

3. This means I’ll miss the Redskins game again this week (I missed last week’s game because I was on the road returning from North Carolina). Maybe this means the ‘Skins will win again too. I’ll find out when I get in my car after the luncheon and tune into the game.

4. Laundry - I need to finish what I started yesterday.

5. Clean the apartment - I planned that for yesterday afternoon, but the movie with my small group gal and the haircut pushed that off the agenda. I need to vacuum badly.

6. Laze about - this includes catching up on the TV shows I videotaped last week, reading, and blogging. If time permits and I feel the need, there may be a Power Nap™ as well.

And now I need to get ready for church. I hope ya’ll have a great Sunday and I’ll be back later…

Saturday, November 15, 2003

An anniversary is coming up. It’s an anniversary that has been documented every year since the events remembered occurred. It’s an anniversary that occurred before I was born, so maybe that explains why I’m not as emotionally attached to that particular date or to the people involved. It’s a date that has countless documentaries, movies, books, and whatnot detailing to the minutest detail what occurred, who was there, who wasn’t there, yadda yadda yadda. So what am I talking about?

The assassination of President John. F. Kennedy. His murder occurred 30 40 years ago - that’s a milestone that I don’t consider unreasonable to recognize. But I don’t think it’s necessary to recount it every year, we know what happened, right? Then again, to the tin foil hat-wearing conspiracy crowd, maybe we don’t. (FWIW, I’m not sure Oswald acted alone, but I don’t buy into Oliver Stone’s theatrical theory either. Back and to the left, back and to the left...)

OK, so what don’t I get?

I don’t understand how the man’s murder rockets him to Best President Ever status. From all I hear about his Presidency, his wasn’t that stellar. From what I hear about him as a husband, he wasn’t that stellar. As a father? That one I’ll give him high marks on, judging from his children, although he died when they were very young. So maybe Mom-Jackie had more to do with that aside from his DNA contribution and a few years presence while they were little.

Don’t get me wrong. His murder was horrible - for his family, for the country. I understand that. But it seems to me that with each passing year the remembrances of the man elevate him to near sainthood.

Was he a good President? Maybe.

Was his death tragic? Absolutely.

Does his early death make him a great President? No. It makes him an assassinated President who died at a young age. End of story.

When I logged off last night I was 2 comments shy of 3000. This afternoon, I’m 1 comment shy of 3000.

So who’s it gonna be? Who will be the one to give me that 3000th comment in 790 posts? Hmmm?

LATER: And I see that sometime today I passed 25K visitors. Thanks, all!

LATERER:  Chewie was the 3000th commenter, on this post. Thanks, Chew - you’ve been a regular for a while and I greatly appreciate that!

I decided this morning to see about getting my hair cut; today if possible. So after small group, I called my mother’s salon (because I still had the gift certificate she gave me months ago) to see if there were any openings this afternoon. Turns out Andrew was available.

Small group was great - four came this morning, we had pancakes, got caught up with each other’s lives in the last two weeks, then got into our Bible study lesson. Today’s lesson was Acts 3-4: looking at Peter’s and John’s example of boldness in faith. We had a good discussion about it.

One of the gals stayed to watch a movie with me (her copy of Sleepy Hollow that she had loaned me and that I hadn’t had a chance to watch yet - I liked it). Then I drove her home and headed over for my appointment with Andrew (Pat wasn’t available, Mom).

Let me say, he did a fantstic job. There is nothing like a superb haircut. One of the other stylists had the look I wanted, so I just pointed at her and said, “I want mine like that.” She laughed and said, “He did mine.” How perfect is that?

My hair was pretty long, probably down to the middle of my back with some longer layers cut in from my last cut in May. I’ve been wearing it up all the time because it was just too long and heavy - I have a lot of hair. After the new do, I think he must have taken about 2-3 inches off of the length, but there are some shorter layers all over too. And he chopped some of the bulk out too, so it’s much lighter. I think it looks great. I’ll try to get a picture taken soon to post here.

Oh, and thanks a ton, Mom! You’re gonna love it…

Friday, November 14, 2003

I’ve seen other bloggers complain about spam in their comments. I just received my first spamment!

hello - nice blog you got here, if you don’t mind let me plug this Xanax site. It is really good i think. [URL deleted]

I haven’t done The Friday Five in a while. This one looks interesting…

1. Using one adjective, describe your current living space. cozy

2. Using two adjectives, describe your current employer.  The agency or the man? I’ll answer for the agency - absolutely insane.

3. Using three adjectives, describe your favorite hobby/pasttime.  relaxing, imaginative, escapism

4. Using four adjectives, describe your typical day.  routine, routine, routine, routine - really, each day is pretty much the same

5. Using five adjectives, describe your ideal life.  redeemed, purposeful, loved/loving, serving, contented

We decided on Baja Fresh for lunch today. I took the orders, collected the money, George is ready to go pick it up - I called the location we go to and the phone just rang and rang and rang. After about 15-16 rings, someone picked it up.

“I’m sorry, we closed,” I was told when I said I wanted to place a carry-out order.

“Closed?” I was confused - it’s Friday, the busiest lunch day of the week in food service. And then it became clear.

There are a lot of places with no power because of downed lines as a result of the heavy winds we’ve had the past couple of days. Baja must be one of them. Bummer.

Plan B? Five Guys - arguably the best burgers to be found. YUM!

I just closed a door a few minutes ago; it was a little hard to do and also a little scary.

A little background to explain - there are two scenarios on the job front for me.

Scenario 1: Our church admin is leaving her position to go work for another ministry. When they announced it in church about a month ago, I didn’t even blink. But a couple of weeks ago, I felt that God was telling me to ask our pastor about the position - I knew that I would be a great fit for the position because it’s similar to the work I did with Young Life. So one Sunday I grabbed him after church, asked, and was told that they were thinking of downsizing it to part time. OK, I thought, a clear closed door.

Scenario 2: Right after my conversation with my pastor, MB had a long talk with me about my options in this office - part of it involving LW’s job should she be leaving (and that was still up in the air). LW got word this week that they definitely got the job in Texas, so she will be gone by the end of December, most likely. MB has sort of been grooming me for her job, but we’re talking about the government here so I’ll have to compete for it, which means it’s not 100% certain that I’ll get that position. But he wants me to have it and I want it.

Then about a week ago, I was chatting with The Marshal at my desk, when my phone rang. On the other end was my pastor, so I wrote a note to The Marshal explaining who it was - he waved off and went back to his office. (Remember that The Marshal is an elder at my church.) My pastor (VC) then proceeded to tell me that he and the elders had discussed the admin position again after talking to me and that they decided to expand some tasks to make it full time, was I interested?

WHAT?

I thought that door was closed, Lord. I had to laugh, because He does this kind of thing to me all the time. Also, VC told me that The Marshal was supportive of them asking me about it and that he would be fine with what ever decision I made. It’s a little weird to have The Boss know that I’m talking to our church about another job.

VC and I set up an appointment to meet, which was last Friday morning before I left town. It was a good meeting and I got excited about the possibility of working in ministry again - I loved my years with Young Life - supporting the staff, knowing I was helping the mission. Anyway, I was honest with VC about the possible promotion here and that I was leaning in that direction because I had thought the admin job was a closed door. I appreciated hearing one-on-one from VC a little of what his vision is for the church and just having the chance to get to know him a little better. He’s a good man and I think he’ll be a great blessing to our church. He asked me to continue praying about it and we’d revisit it later.

I’ve thought about it a lot over the last week and when I had a voice mail from VC this morning, I knew a decision had to be made. I told VC that I was going to pursue the position here, but that there was one particular task they had listed for the admin that I thought I could do (and would enjoy doing) as a volunteer (it’s involved with music and it’s something I sort of already do unofficially). He told me to discuss that with our worship leader; I plan to send him an email later about it.

So I’m a little sad at the re-closing of that door. But I’m convinced that I made the wise choice. And in the meantime, my church is in need of an admin, so I covet your prayers on that.

I’m still leading. Yay!

jenspeaks—480.70
Jaynee—428.85
DenisS—413.23
AceRocks—356.99
amancini123—336.44

***EPISODE SPOILERS FOLLOW***

I wasn’t surprised that RyanO was voted off, but I really want Jon gone - I cannot stand him, the weasel. Actually, RyanO looked super-emaciated last night - more so than any of the others. The alliance of Burton and Lillian could be the downfall of Rupert, unless Rupert continues to win immunity. I thought Christa had a good point about the laziness of the Morgan tribe members and Sandra is right to be concerned about food if/when Rupert is gone. It’s getting interesting…

Thursday, November 13, 2003

I love how to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act our shower may cause you to be disabled. You know, how the shower doesn’t have a lip? So water comes pouring out - you’ll end up in a wheelchair when you slip on the water on the floor.

This office has a really nice fitness room and bathrooms with shower facilities. What’s funny is that the men seem a little more concerned about their bathroom/shower than the ladies - they were discussing the shower curtain and bench/shelves yesterday, mentioning Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It made me chuckle a little.