Friday, September 10, 2004

Pesterment

I haven’t gotten much done this morning because I keep getting pestered by a coworker who parks in my office to chat. This last time, I finally said that I needed to get some work done and they left. It’s already noon and I have nothing to show for it.

What sucks is that I had a plan for tasks that I wanted to get done today because I knew it would be slow and quiet in the office. And I am planning to bring some work home so that I can work on it uninterrupted over the weekend because it’s stuff that I just can’t get to here at the office.

Frustrating Friday.

Posted by at 01:59 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Thursday, September 09, 2004

The Last Minute Meeting

So I had a meeting at church last night after work - it was for the youth small group leaders, of which I am one. I thought it was going to be a time to catch up with one another, get ready for this semester, and be told what is our curriculum for the fall. It was all of that, but not anything that I expected, and I’m not completely happy.

I came home pretty irked with the plan for this fall because what’s being considered and moved on negates everything that I’ve been talking to my girls about in the past couple of weeks and the email that I sent them and their parents just yesterday. After sleeping on it, I’m still not very happy, but as I said last night, I’ll do whatever the church leadership decides. I’m praying for a receptive heart on this, but I have some concerns about some of their ideas. And I’m also a bandwagon rebel and this thing smacks of bandwaggoning to a level that I just don’t like and tend to resist.

I’m sworn to secrecy until Sunday, when the other people involved are clued in as well. I’m interested to see how much dissent there will be to one particular aspect, because I think it’s going to be considerable. That said, I’ve been hoping for some outside the box thinking and this fits that bill, so I’m a little convicted that I’m complaining about it already. Who knows, folks may really embrace the whole thing and my concerns will be proven wrong. We’ll see…

On a related note, I want to ask my blog-friends who serve in youth ministry at their churches - how do you feel about being a part of a small group with the parents of the kids you work with. The reason I ask is because the “home group” that I should be a part of is very small and includes the parents of two of my small group girls. Because of my schedule, I haven’t been attending in the past year or so. But it’s also because I’ve been a little uncomfortable with being in an intimate group with the parents of girls who share very vulnerable stuff about their family struggles. I’m friends with these parents and I dearly love them, but I don’t know that it’s appropriate for me to have such intimate knowledge of their entire family (because the adults get pretty honest and vulnerable in their small group as well). Nor do I want to have that level of knowledge. In addition, one mother tries to subtly pump me for information about her daughter, which I won’t give her because it’s not appropriate and would break my confidence with her daughter, and so I try to keep a certain level of distance between us. Anyway, I’d appreciate some feedback on this if you have thoughts to share.

Posted by at 11:58 AM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

The Pitch

GWB’s campaign blog has posted the video “The Pitch” - the introduction at the convention that was played before the President came out to give his speech. I thought it was a great little film and a very good reminder of those days three years ago that shaped this President and this Presidency. Go take a look.

Posted by at 07:02 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Chicks for Bush

Via Ith, I just learned about the newly formed Chicks for Bush crew. Of course, you know that I’m in, right?

Spread the word!

Posted by at 05:36 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

How Many Times?

It’s been a while since I’ve complained about the phone calls I get from prisoner loved ones or people wanting to buy auctioned cars. I just got off the phone with the 13th or 14th family member of a prisoner that’s called today to inquire about their status or whereabouts. Because most of them don’t speak English as their native language, I try to speak in short declarative sentences. And it’s a pretty standard line I have to give them:

We don’t give out prisoner information for security reasons. You need to contact his/her attorney (I may say “lawyer” if their English is really bad or if they ask me if I speak Spanish) or wait for your loved one to call them.

They’ll argue that they need the information, their loved one hasn’t called them, etc. Sure, I understand you need the information - I’m assuming that’s why you called - but I can’t give it to you. I’m sorry your loved one hasn’t called you; sadly, there’s nothing I can do about that. Etc.

And they insist that the local jail told them to call our office. Right, because that’s their standard line. It doesn’t matter what your question is, if it’s regarding a federal prisoner you’ll get our number. Even if you ask if the sky is blue, they’ll give you our number.

I try to be nice and patient. I know it has to be aggravating to get the run around. I know it has to be troubling to have a loved one in jail. But when you ask me the same question more than twice, I start to lose my patience. Don’t make me repeat myself ad nauseum, people. I have much better things to do than have to tell you a dozen times that I don’t give out that information.

ARGH!

Posted by at 04:39 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Week 10 TAR5 League Standings

Here are the standings for the league after last night’s ep. I have some thoughts that I’ll have to post later.

The Amazing Race 5 Weekly Challenge

kdeweb—2340
jenspeaks—2205
chrissw—2175
tygertyger—1930
Jaynee—1850
princessjami—1680
denis—1540
SteenShell—1375

UPDATE: OK, my thoughts are here ----->

Posted by at 11:55 AM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

More from Beslan

Sandman posted an email he received from a pastor in Beslan.

The Baptist Church in Beslan is located near the school where the great tragedy occurred. The pastor’s name is Michael. Eleven children from the church families were held hostage and terrorized by the attackers. Of the 11 children who were held hostage, 3 are now at home and 1 boy is in the hospital. One woman from the church, Irina, was able to escape from the school with one of her children but saw her 9-year old son shot to death in front of her eyes. Another member of the Baptist church is also named Irina and she has not been able to find her child.

Sergei, a church planter in the area, and his wife had three children among the hostages. Their 9-year old daughter, Anna, is believed dead, but it is still unconfirmed. Their 12-year old son, Azamat, is in the hospital with a severe eye injury. Their younger child is still missing.

Sergei has a brother named Temuraz. He and his wife have 5 children. One daughter, Magina, was hospitalized for a short time but is now home. They are trying to find their other 4 children.

From these two families, the following children are still missing: Dzerassa age 15, Anna 9, Larisa 14, Luba 12, Albina 11, and Boris 8.

The situation in Beslan is difficult. They are grateful for your greetings and concern, but they are in shock. There are more than 400 children in the hospitals. Many are badly injured and burned. Identifying the injured is extremely difficult. Many are so traumatized that they are unable to say their names or the names of their parents. Identifying the bodies of those who have died is equally difficult as many of them were killed by explosions and the ensuing fires. It is felt that the number who have perished will reach five hundred.

Please pray often for all the families that have been affected. Pray for the pastors and the churches who are seeking to minister to all who have lost precious little loved ones. Pray that the Lord will grant them great wisdom and enduring strength in handling the situation and make them channels of Christ’s great love for all the victims and their families. Again, your prayers and concern are deeply appreciated.

He’s got a heartbreaking photo of Sergei and his kids with his brother and some others in their church at his blog that you should see. And pray for these hurting people. Pray also for President Putin - he’s been dealing with these “rebels” for many years with little support from the people. I think that now, his people will greatly support whatever action he chooses to take against the terrorists.  Posted by at 10:27 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

From Ace

The Cooties hang with a couple of guys that I just love - Ace & Anthony. So Ace called me last week to ask for my home addy because he found something that he knew I would love. I promptly forgot about that conversation...until I opened my mailbox yesterday (I don’t go get my mail everyday because it’s a little inconvenient) and saw this huge padded envelope stuffed in there with the bills and junk.

It made noise when I moved it, but I couldn’t identify what would make that noise at first. Then I opened the envelope and I cracked up to see a box of Macaroni and Cheese. But this is not your ordinary mac & cheese - this is Republican Convention mac & cheese.

Here’s the front of the box. And back of the box. It’s being stored away with my other collectible food items, which include a 6-pack of Super Bowl Redskins Coke and a box of British Wheaties with Alan Titchmarsh on the front. Also in the envelope was this little notebook, which will be held as a collectible as well.

Ace, you’re the best! Thanks for sending me that stuff (note that I’m not mentioning the rainbow bumper sticker *smirk*). What a great gift…

Posted by at 06:45 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

The Truth About Terrorists

If you have any doubt that the terrorists who took the school in Beslan, Russia, weren’t intending to harm any of the 1000+ hostages, take a look at this article from the London Daily Mirror.

THE full horror of the Russian school atrocity began to emerge yesterday as traumatised children told horrific tales of stabbed babies and brutal rapes.

It has also emerged that scores of the 323 who died - including many children - had been shot in the back.

While despairing soldiers and rescue workers moved among the growing pile of body bags, it was revealed that an 18-month-old baby had been repeatedly stabbed by a black-clad terrorist who had run out of ammunition.

Other survivors told how screaming teenage girls were dragged into rooms adjoining the gymnasium where they were being held and raped by their Chechen captors who chillingly made a video film of their appalling exploits

They said children were forced to drink their own urine and eat the petals off the flowers they had brought their teachers after nearly three days without food or water in the stifling hot gym.

Their stories came as Russian officials warned that the final death toll of the siege of Middle School No 1 at Beslan in North Ossetia - in which up to 1,200 people were held captive - was likely to be more than 400.

[...]

A shocking account of the siege has come from Indira Dzetskelova, the mother of 12-year-old Dzerase who was guarded by two women suicide bombers during the siege. She said: “On the first day they shot a man before my daughter’s eyes. They frightened the kids by saying that water in the tap was poisoned.

“The famished children had to eat rose petals from bouquets which they specially bought for their teachers to mark the first day of term. Parents who were also captured had to feed their kids with all the window plants.

“After they ate all the petals, my daughter said that she started to nibble the rose plants.

“She told me that several 15-year-old girls were raped by terrorists. She heard their terrible cries and screams when those monsters took them away.”

Her traumatised daughter Dzerase sobbed as she added: “When the assault started, some of us were running out through the school dining room.

“We had to run across and jump over dead bodies. Can I ever forget it? Is it possible that one day I will forget it?

“The terrorists started to shoot from the roof, then one of them ran into the dining room and started to shoot from the window.

“I saw kids and women falling to the ground. And I saw that vermin’s face. I saw his smile as he killed my friends.”

Remember Columbine? Remember how horrified we were when that siege was going on and we didn’t know that it was just two teenaged kids that were on the attack in their own school? Do you remember how you felt on that day and in the days after when we learned what really happened?

Now...imagine Columbine but with 30+ Islamic terrorists who are fully prepared to rape and murder our children and martyr themselves for their cause.

[via citizen smash]

Posted by at 04:19 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Funny Stickers

I just got off the phone with one of my favorite deputies. He’s getting ready to head over to the sandbox for a short deployment (3-6 months) to help out a bit with court security. He called to tell me about a website that has a ton of hilarious bumper stickers and the addy he gave me was [url=http://www.rightnation.com]http://www.rightnation.com[/url]. Turns out it’s a blog with a link to their CafePress Shop of stuff. When I mentioned that RightNation is a blog, he blew right past that - so he’s either completely in the know on blogs or clueless and couldn’t care less because it’s all about the hilarious stickers.

Anyway, here’s my favorite of the bunch.

Posted by at 04:10 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Monday’s Musings

I had a lovely two hour commute this morning (yay for school’s restart!), so I had some time to do some thinking. Actually, I was listening to the local talk radio station and I was reminded of something I thought about posting yesterday and decided not to because I was fully engaged in my project.

Item #1:  I caught a bit of video from John Kerry’s rally yesterday and I was irked by the joker who spoke before the Senator and accused President Bush of draft dodging Vietnam. Now, I really think it’s a mistake to make that charge when the Dems had the President who really did draft dodge. But what really irks be about this arm of the attack on President Bush is that their disparagement of his Texas Air National Guard service is just a little insulting to current National Guardsmen. If you accuse his service in the TANG as draft dodging then what are you saying about the thousands of National Guard who serve today and yet haven’t seen combat or been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan? Because it’s very likely that they might be called up to action at any time, which was also true of President Bush’s unit back in the Vietnam days. He was just fortunate that his unit wasn’t called upon to go.

Item #2:  I haven’t posted on the Russian school thing because I just haven’t known what to say. It’s the most horrific act of terrorism imaginable, with the possible exception of the acts on 9/11 here. To target children is truly barbaric. And make no mistake, there are more of these murdering thugs living cushy lives here in the US who would love nothing better than to carry out a similar hostage-taking and killing here. Don’t think they haven’t considered it and aren’t planning something even now. We are not immune from stuff like this. It’s just a matter of time before we are attacked again and I’m convinced it will be on a smaller scale than the attack on 9/11 but equally devastating - the local mall, your neighborhood school, a town athletic park, you name it. It’s going to happen.

It is for this reason that I’m certain that President Bush must be reelected in November. He is the one best suited for continuing the efforts that he started to prevent another attack. He’s also the one best suited for an appropriate response when we are attacked. He’s proven that in the past three years. I’m not so sure that John Kerry will act with the same resolve - and that’s evidenced by his own words and Senate votes. I just don’t know about him.

Posted by at 12:09 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Monday, September 06, 2004

Mission Accomplished

I have a lot of tea coming my way from all the work I did on Mom’s business website this weekend (she pays me in tea, which is a nice perk). So I got everything done and then noticed that the splash page still has the “Under Construction” verbage, which probably isn’t a bad thing for another week since I’m sure I’ll have some tweaking to do. And there won’t be a CSS file at this point, but I managed to get everything to look the way I want for now. And Mom seems happy, which is the most important thing, no?

Posted by at 11:36 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

TV Stuff

Here’s your weekly announcement of the latest TWoP TAR5 recap. Some good LOL stuff, but I’m too lazy to excerpt today. And for my league people, don’t forget to take the quiz for this week!

How happy am I that TLC is running a marathon of What Not To Wear today? I love that show.

For people who love to laugh out loud, ESPN has a 25th Anniversary clip show on at 8pm ET tonight. I have the 20th anniversary show on tape and it’s hilarious. I know that I’ll be tuned in tonight for that. Thanks for the tip, Dad.

Posted by at 01:14 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Happy Labor Day

It’s nice to be able to sleep in until you wake up. For me, that was 6:15am, which isn’t that late, but it’s still nice. I’m looking forward to this day off and the short work week, although I’m sure that by about 2pm today I’ll be a little restless and ready to get back to work. It’s sad.

My weekend was spent on the computer for the most part. “But, Jen, you didn’t post anything all weekend!” you’re thinking. Yeah, I didn’t have much to say. Instead, I was working on my mother’s website some more and it’s coming along nicely. It’s a lot of working on graphics in Photoshop and then uploading them and modifying the content. I’m still planning to do the CSS thing - mostly for the fonts, headlines, and links - my plan today is to really read through the chapter on making it work with HTML files. I know sort of, but I also know that I’m missing some aspects because of how my blog is split between the CSS and PHP files and the embedded pMachine stuff.

Anyway, there might be a little more blogging today, but it’s not likely. It depends on if anything strikes my interest on TV or the radio.

What’s your plan for today?

Posted by at 09:09 AM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Friday, September 03, 2004

Poor Thing’s Web-Neglected

As expected for second borns, my adorable nephew is getting short shrift in the blogging and photo count when compared with his big sister. This isn’t a criticism of his parents - they’re adapting to being parents of two.

I know that I’ve been remiss in auntie bragging. I plan to download and upload the latest pics tomorrow for the sidebar rotation. In the meantime, I can at least link to CootieBoy’s blog and tell you to head on over for the latest update and some darned cute pictures of the red headed little man.

I can already see changes in the two weeks since his birth. I can’t wait to see him in person again. *Mentally calculating when I can make a trip north again...*

Posted by at 10:49 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink