Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Maybe it’s because I’m tired after a long workday and the meeting at church, but this debate is just dreadful. The questions are lame (flu shots? that’s a contamination/distribution problem, not a Presidential problem, right?). Maybe my antipathy for this debate is also because I care less about domestic issues than I do foreign policy - I think that comes from my basic philosophy on the role of federal government, which is that the only role of the federal government is to protect and defend the Constitution and the citizens of the United States from all harm, both foreign and domestic.

Kerry is prattling on about his “plans” - I swear that I may hurl something into my TV if he continues to say, “I have a plan.” There is NO PLAN! NO PLANS. None. Nada. Just a lot of talk about plans. I’m starting to hate that word. Sheesh.

Bush is better suited to the looser format of the town hall style of last Friday. He’s getting in some good shots to Kerry’s BS, though. The question is, “Are people listening?”

LATER: Oooh, I think Schiefer will get bonus points from Michelle Malkin - he’s the only moderator to ask about immigration.

I just had the honored privilege of leading my future housemate in a prayer to accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.

We’ve had several talks of a spiritual nature and she’s been visiting my church. So today, I asked her if she had heard of The Bridge illustration, which she hadn’t. I quickly went through it with her (although I’m a little rusty with it) and asked her where she thought she was. She drew herself at the edge of the cliff, ready to take the step on “the bridge” of the cross over to God’s cliff. I then asked her what she was waiting for. “I don’t know,” she answered.

So I asked her if she wanted to take that step right now and she said, “Yes.” I closed my office door and led her in a prayer of acceptance, repentance, and commitment to our Lord. I then encouraged her to tell two specific people that I know have been praying for her. She’s already talking about being baptized, too.

It’s exciting! And I’m a little scared at the role I might be continuing to play in her growth as a new follower of the Christ since I’ll be sharing her house. She asked me about doing devotions with her and her daughter when I move in. This should be fun.

UPDATE (5:16pm): She just called me to thank me. Aw. She said, “I’m not normally a blubberer, but I had to pull onto the side of the road (she’s driving home). I have this feeling of peace and I’m happy that the day at work ended the way it did.”

Ah, Lord, I’m overwhelmed at how You reveal Yourself to us and use us. Thank You for the peace that transcends all understanding. My fervent prayer is that You will continue to encourage her as she begins her life as Your adopted child.

Dave is back from his vacation and tells of his experience getting bumped up to First Class. His tale reminded me of when I got to enjoy first class unexpectedly.

I and my co-worker JN, when we both worked for the International Division of Young Life, had to fly to our HQ in Colorado for a training thing. Our flight out west was a nightmare - we had a stop in Minneapolis with a plane change. Turns out that our connecting flight was cancelled (with no notification to our travel agent) and so we had to make quick arrangements for another flight from Minneapolis to Colorado Springs. The flight we got onto was then cancelled and we were shifted to a flight to Denver, so we changed our car rental from Colorado Springs to Denver. We ended up arriving in Colorado Springs about three hours later than we were supposed to; everyone was already eating the planned dinner when we walked in. Oh, and it was my birthday to boot.

On our return flight, we had the same layover in Minneapolis. Our connecting flight was delayed, so we cooled our heels at the gate. After we had been waiting for quite a while, one of the gate agents picked up the PA mic and announced that flight whatever was going to play a littel trivia game, the winner would be bumped up to first class.

JN immediately got excited because I’m a walking bundle of random trivia and useless knowledge. She was convinced that I would win. I was confident, but it really depended on what kind of trivia we were talking about. Turns out it was going to be movie trivia.

I worked at Blockbuster for 2 years, people. There’s not much about quite a lot of movies that I don’t know. JN was quivering in excitement.

The Question: Which actress also ran the Pepsi Company for a time? (That’s the gist of the question. I can’t remember the exact wording now.)

My hand shot up instantly, as did a couple of others. I was nervous because there were about a half dozen hands raised. The gate agent went to everyone else first and none had the correct answer. I looked at JN as the gate agent walked my way. “I’m going to win,” I whispered to her.

“You have the answer?” the gate agent asked me.

“Joan Crawford.”

The gate agent actually clapped as she skipped back to the desk and raised the PA mic to her lips. “We have a winner! Tell us the answer please,” she turned back to look at me.

“Joan Crawford,” I could hear the groans from the other hand raisers.

“We used to quote Mommie Dearest all the time. That paid off,” I told JN.

I was waved up to the desk, “I’m travelling with a friend, is it possible to upgrade both of us?” I didn’t want to leave JN in coach.

“Sure!” and the gate agent waved JN up with me. We enjoyed the extra leg room, the drinks in real glasses, the quiet, the never-ending snack basket, and the hot towels on our flight from Minneapolis to Dulles after a long week of training. First class rulz.

I have a meeting at church tonight - the youth small group leaders have been summoned by the Youth Guy. I have no clue what we’ll be discussing. I’m not very excited to go for many reasons - the main one being the last minute nature of it, again. I got the inquiry about meeting on Friday afternoon. On Sunday, at church, he told me that we would be meeting tonight. I’m a planner and not too big on last minute changes to my weekly routine - there aren’t many spontaneous bones in my body. The man is great, I love him to death, but he needs some admin help.

I set my VCR for LOST, since I’m doubtful that I’ll be home in time to watch that. I told Youth Guy that I needed to leave by 8:30pm so that I’d be home in time for the last debate. Besides, I can’t imagine what we need to discuss that will last longer than a couple of hours on a weeknight.

OK, so I want to watch the debate, but Game 2 of the Yankees-Red Sox series is on as well. I will watch the debate live and flip over to the game whenever I get too bored to continue listening to the politicans or when the debate it over, whicever comes first. I’m also a little interested in the Astros-Cardinals game, but I have no dog in that hunt, so I’ll catch the highlights on that in the morning, most likely.

I’m most bummed about not being able to watch Lost live, though. I don’t know when I’ll be able to watch the tape - probably not until Saturday. That stinks.

There are no supervisors here today - well, the Ops Supervisor is here, but he doesn’t pay any attention to me except for the candy jar on my desk and he’s in the back squadroom on the other side of our office space. Also, there’s not much going on in the courthouse today, except for the group of high school kids that were here for a tour thing this morning. I came off of the elevator from the garage to face about 100 teenagers in our lobby going through the security process (metal detector, x-ray machine, wands, shoes, etc.). It was an adventure just getting to our office door.

It’s very quiet and a little boring here today. And it’s dreary and gray outside. I’m severely lacking in motivation to do anything at this point.

I fell asleep after the dread Yankees scored their 5th or 6th run early in the game. I was awake enough to be aware that Mussina was pitching a perfect game, but I must have hit deeper sleep because I woke up to see that the Red Sox had scored 3 runs!

And now here I sit - trying to resist the siren call of Blanket Bob and Pillow Pete behind me because it’s the 8th inning and the Red Sox have brought the score to 8-7, with the tying run on third base and the leading run hitting. with 2 outs.

Oh, he popped it up. Top of the 8th over.

I want to go to bed, but I want to see the Red Sox win. *sigh* *yawn*

11:30pm: Ooops, Yankees scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th. Score now 10-7, top of the 9th. I’ll watch the first out and then I’m going to bed. They’ll have to rally without me.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

I just learned that today is the anniversary of the birth of Aussie hottie - Hugh Jackman. He’s 36 years old.

More lovely photos can be found here.

Go see the warning system - I believe we’re currently at “Mildly Annoying” nationwide with NY/DC at “Terribly Inconvenient” - hilarious.

I’m not a Mormon or I might have known about Jen Magazine earlier. What made them pick that name, I wonder.

[via lawren]

[image stolen from accidental verbosity]

Turns out there is just one really important Washington Redskins game this season, and it isn’t against arch-nemesis Dallas. This season, the one game that the ‘Skins must win (imho) will be played on October 31 against Green Bay.

[via wizbang!]

**Snark Warning***

Anyone else tired of hearing about the all important undecided voters? I’m sick to death of hearing about them. I don’t think there are as many of them as are being reported and I also don’t think they’re as important as is being reported.

I saw one of the undecideds that was selected to ask a question at the last debate (I can’t remember his name or the question he asked) on Fox & Friends over the weekend. He asked a question of Senator Kerry and said he wasn’t completely happy with the Senator’s answer, but neither was he happy with the President’s rebuttal - that’s fine, maybe the question was dumb and there wasn’t a good answer to be had. At the end of the interview he was asked if he had made up his mind on which candidate he was going to vote for and he said he hadn’t - he’s still undecided!

Good grief.

Listen, you undecideds, if you are still undecided at this point in the campaign, then it’s because you don’t know what you believe politically and/or you’re ignorant of the issues. You might want to really spend the next couple of weeks trying to figure out what you really believe in politically and do a little more reading up on where each candidate really stands on the issues. Otherwise just stay home on election day, please.

Monday, October 11, 2004

I got this from Jared.

Three Things That . . .

01. Make you feel like a kid:

01. You love:

01: Make you feel loved:

Bloggers:
There are several I’d love to meet in person, but I guess if I could only pick three, it’d be these lovely people:

I spent the morning working on stuff for the move - I have a few boxes that never got unpacked when I moved back from New Hampshire. So I went through the biggest box and split the contents into trash, give away, and keep piles. What’s funny is that I was never able to find my iron so my mother bought me a new one. I found the original today, but she now needs a new iron, so she’ll get it.

After some lunch, I watched Hidalgo. Aside from one particular place where I thought the sets were noticable as sets rather than real buildings, I thought it was pretty good. My only regret for not seeing it in the theater is that I bet that sandstorm scene was amazing on a theater screen. Otherwise, I was happy enough that I had waited for the DVD. It’s not the best movie ever made, but it was an entertaining couple of hours, which is the goal of movies. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Jaynee and the kids are on their way home as I type this. We had a fun weekend, although we missed seeing their dad, who stayed home to work. My niece is pre-co-cious and just generally happy. She has the sweetest smile. My nephew is equally cute and I can’t wait to see how he’ll have changed by Christmas when I’ll see them next. He’ll be fun in a couple of months.

From a longer list of the status of kids that were injured at the Beslan school found at Michelle Malkin’s blog, this one stood out to me:

Mukagov, Azamat Age: 2
Abdominal gunshot penetration wound. Liver wound. Peritonitis. 9/4/2004 the patient was operated. Colostomy and ileostomy were applied. Started to eat. State: improves. With the mother and father at hospital.

And John Kerry thinks that terrorism is just a nuisance? John Kerry is a nuisance.